UAC Magazine - September/October 2017

URBAN AG COUNCIL MAGAZINE GEORGIA

Keeping Georgia’s green industry informed

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Advocate. Educate. Promote.1

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

UAC Magazine Official publication of the Georgia Urban Agriculture Council

Board of Directors Todd Jarrett, President

Arbor Hill Nurseries Matt Lowe

Swift Straw Josh Morrow

Athletic Fields, Inc. Ken Morrow

Sod Atlanta Chris Nelson

Chattahoochee Nature Center Bob Scott

Irrigation Consultant Services Ray Wiedman

Outdoor Expressions Ron White TurfPride Dixie Speck, Past President

Solterra Landscape

Ex Officio Ellen Bauske

UGA Extension Public Service Assistant Bodie Pennisi

UGA Extension Horticulturist Clint Waltz

UGA Extension Turf Agronomist

Staff Mary Kay Woodworth

Executive Director Kathy Gatten Johnson

Marketing Director & Editor

A member of:

Georgia Urban Ag Council PO Box 817 Commerce GA 30529 P: 800.687.6949 F: 706.336.6898 E: info@georgiauac.com www.urbanagcouncil.com All contents copyright 2017

GEORGIA

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

UAC NEWS

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Executive Director message Rosenfeld wins Pioneer Award Dedication of Work Renewal and Remembrance address GALA awards Plan your entries UAC member celebrates milestone 10 years of service

REGULAR FEATURES

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Save the date Pest 411 Fall webworms Have you met...John Brazel, Yancey Bros. Co. Me & my mentor Phillip Paley, Paley Landscaping+ Health & benefits Employee wellness programs Pro Project Taming the slope, Bennett Design & Landscape What the tech? Is your website profitable?

BUSINESS 28 30 32 36 42

Hip homepages Trends are always changing, including web design Workforce development series Selecting and onboarding the best Get busy being smarter Three ways to run a smarter company Soaring into the future Will drones help your green industry business?

The year of the battery Battery-powered outdoor equipment

INDUSTRY 46 48 49 50 52 53

A servant's heart McCorkle wins leadership award SAF recognizes UGA faculty member Paul Thomas receives award SNA to collocate with MANTS January 8-9 conference in Baltimore Top 100 landscape companies Lawn & Landscape annual survey In like a lion UAC member new to Lawn & Landscape's Top 100 20 years of Top 100 Two decades of data

URBAN AG

54 Invasive species More cargo containers = more concern 56 The follow-up Long-term weed control 58 Knowledge is power To control weeds in turf, get to know them first

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Atlanta Botanical Garden Georgia Agribusiness Council Georgia Arborist Association Georgia Association of Water Professionals Georgia Green Industry Association Georgia Urban Forest Council Georgia Water Alliance National Association of Landscape Professionals Southern Nursery Association

URBAN AG COUNCIL MAGAZINE

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UAC NEWS

Dear UAC Members and Supporters, Writing this in mid-August, it’s hard to

Mary Kay Woodworth Executive Director

believe that kids are back in school and fall is around the corner. 2017’s summer of moderate temperatures and abundant rainfall makes it easy to forget the extended, dry heat wave we suffered in 2016. While Level 2 drought rules remain in place in 12 Metro-Atlanta counties (due to conservative measures by Georgia’s EPD so that outdoor water use doesn’t spike in the traditionally dry late summer months), many landscape contractors and their customers aren’t aware that there are ANY water restrictions in place. Please continue to diligently educate your employees and your customers about efficient water use. This might also be a good time to discuss converting to smart controllers, too.

Recently, a group of former MALTA/GTA/UAC past presidents and current board members met to brainstorm and discuss the past, present and future of UAC. Twenty of these industry leaders participated in a lively conversation of industry challenges, professionalism and relevance of the association. With a skilled facilitator (Mike Iverson, Principal of Snellings Walters) the

group identified three priorities to address. We will meet again this fall to move forward with initiatives identified – and we would like your input, as well! A survey was recently distributed via email to current, former and potential members and we’d like more feedback! Thank you in advance for sharing your perspective: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UAC2017

We hope to see you at one of many events scheduled for the coming months. Our Dinner With Champions will be a bit different this year, and we are thrilled to honor Arborguard’s Spence Rosenfeld with the distinguished Pioneer Award at that dinner on September 26. We have a new business mentoring event on September 28 featuring WebTech’s Mark Itzkovitz to discuss social media strategies. Look for more of these in coming months. October 12 takes us back to Blalock Lakes for the annual UAC Sporting Clays Tournament, followed October 31-November 1 with Sod + Turf Producers Field Day at SuperSod’s farm in Fort Valley, GA. Be sure to check the UAC website often for updates!

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UAC NEWS

Rosenfeld wins UAC Pioneer Award The UAC Board of Directors is pleased to

announce that Spence Rosenfeld, president of Arborguard Tree Specialists, has been selected to receive the distinguished Pioneer Award.

This award, originated by MALTA, is presented to Rosenfeld to recognize the significant contributions that he has made to Georgia’s urban ag industry, through his business, philanthropy and industry leadership.

As a founder of MALTA and an active participant throughout the creation of UAC, Rosenfeld has been a champion for all sectors of our industry. Longtime MALTA/UAC member Jimmy Powell, Emory University, sums it up in his nomination of Rosenfeld for the award:

"I met Spence sometime around 1983 as he was starting his business here in Atlanta. I think I sold him some rhododendrons that day. I had the opportunity to serve on a few of the many non-profit boards that Spence served on over the decades and I thank him for his service to the many organizations that he served. Spence's business ethics and leadership are equaled only by his passion for people, trees, and our green industry. Congratulations, my friend!"

Rosenfeld holds a Masters Degree in Urban Forestry and Tree Pathology from Duke University's School of Forestry where he graduated with honors in 1977. Regarded as an expert within the tree care industry, he has published several articles on safety, employee development, and training.

A registered member of the prestigious American Society of Consulting Arborists (ASCA), Rosenfeld has earned a reputation as

Rosenfeld pioneered the design and implementation of several tree preservation projects. Arborguard has received the MALTA/ UAC Grand Environmental Award for its Tree Save Programs at Post Pointe, the UPS Headquarters, and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, and dozens of other prestigious industry awards.

He was a member of the Board of Directors for the National Arborist Association for five years.

Arborguard was recently acquired by Davey Tree, and Rosenfeld cited Davey’s shared core values as a logical place for the future of his company: “…integrity, innovation and leadership within the green industry. As we learned more about the company, particularly its focus on safety and environmental stewardship, the partnership seemed like a natural fit.” These core values, integrated daily at Arborguard and throughout Rosenfeld’s career, are an outstanding example of a leader in our industry.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Spence Rosenfeld founded Arborguard in 1981 on his love for trees and to provide quality tree care to commercial/ residential customers.

Today, Arborguard thrives as an industry leader and the largest tree care and arboricultural consulting firm in the Southeast.

an authority on tree preservation and care.

An ASCA-registered membership requires years of academic and field experience in arboriculture, and the most stringent qualification requirements in the industry. Rosenfeld is one of the few Please join us in honoring Registered Consulting Spence as he is presented with his award on Tuesday, Arborist members in September 26, at the UAC Georgia. He is also Dinner With Champions. a Certified Global ReLeaf Natural Resource Expert. Sponsored by the American Forestry Association, the Global ReLeaf Program certifies natural resource experts to monitor environmental practices during construction.

New development projects are recognized for their sound environmental practices and tree protection steps.

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UAC NEWS

Dedication of Work

UAC member delivers Renewal and Remembrance address

by Ed Klaas, Southern Sprinkler Systems, Roswell GA

For the past 11 years, Ed Klaas and his family have made an annual pilgrimage to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC for Renewal and Remembrance. This year was special: he was asked to deliver the Dedication of Work. Here is what he said.

"President Cundiff, Chairman Eggleston, Chaplain Wolf, Superintendent Kelley and all of you selfless and dedicated volunteers who have come to Arlington National Cemetery today from around the country to participate in this 21st Renewal and Remembrance event, I am humbled and grateful to deliver today's Dedication.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

On behalf of the more than 5,000 member companies of the National Association of Landscape Professionals, our staff, and respective employees and family members back home, we are appreciative of this unique opportunity to exhibit our skills and to show our enduring devotion to our military heroes.

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I would like to share a story. Luigi Vito was a young man from the town of Castrogiovanni, Sicily. In 1910 at the age of 24, Luigi boarded a ship called the Venezia and started out in search of his American Dream. After an arduous journey across the Atlantic, the ship entered New York harbor. Off to the port side, Luigi and his fellow immigrants would have seen the Statue of Liberty. They had finally arrived. After clearing customs at Ellis Island, as did so many of our ancestors, Luigi eventually made his way to St. Louis, MO where he set up a little cobbler shop and began to sell his beautifully handmade Italian shoes. Soon thereafter, he met a young Irish woman named Mary. They fell in love and got married. Life in America was great!

A few years later, war broke out in Europe and it grew to encompass most of the planet.

'The world must be made safe for democracy,' President Wilson insisted, and the U.S. entered the war in 1917; exactly 100 years ago. Very quickly, the U.S. instituted a draft and began to build up its armed forces. Like most people, Luigi had no interest in serving in a war. He had recently left the Old World and its warring ways and had hoped it would be a distant memory.

However, even though he was never naturalized a U.S. citizen, Luigi dutifully registered for the draft, was inducted into the U.S. Army and was sent into combat in Europe.

The numbers from the 'Great War,' as it was then called, are staggering and incomprehensible.

More than 65 million men and women from over 40 countries took part. Some 4.7 million Americans fought in the war, of which more than 5,000 are buried here at Arlington National Cemetery. World War I, as it was later called, was optimistically referred to as the 'War to End All Wars.' Oh, how I wish that were true!

While you may know that Arlington National Cemetery was created during the Civil War, the first soldiers buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns are from World War I. In fact, the six wreaths, three sculpted on each side, represent the six major campaigns of the war.

Luigi Vito participated in some of those battles.

He witnessed and engaged in inconceivable bloodshed and carnage and experienced horrors that no human being should ever have to face.

But somehow, he managed to survive the war and eventually made it home. But at what cost?

World War I was the first fully mechanized war, and as a result, soldiers who were exposed to mustard gas, other chemicals and fumes required specialized care after the war. Luigi experienced what used to be called 'shell shock' from the extensive trench warfare. Nowadays, we call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Although he wasn't killed in the war, a part of

UAC NEWS Luigi, and many others, died on those far away battlefields. We call these men and women who return but have lingering issues our wounded warriors.

Despite his efforts, Luigi was never able to cope with his return to civilian life and the next decade was a struggle he couldn’t overcome. As a result, he was placed in a Veterans Home to deal with his invisible injuries and there he remained for the rest of his life! For the next 44 years, Luigi spent every day in the care of doctors and nurses, never able to enjoy 'la dolce vita' that he had just begun to experience in those promising days before the war and never again able to see his family in this life. He died in 1971 and is buried in the National Cemetery in Danville, IL next to the wife he was destined to be separated from so many years before. I am proud to say that Luigi and Mary Vito were my great-grandparents and am inspired by the sacrifices they made on behalf of their adopted nation.

So, my fellow landscapers with hearts of gold, who give your time, talent and treasure to beautify these hallowed grounds of Arlington, my challenge to all of us is to remember that

while we labor together this day, and as Abe Lincoln said, it is altogether proper and fitting that we do so, there are still 364 other days each year in which our wounded warriors are dealing with unimaginable and heartbreaking challenges from the experiences they had while defending our way of life. While so many of our national heroes are buried here in Arlington, countless others return from battle, only to deal daily with the injuries, both physical and mental, that they received. They desperately need us to be there for them in whatever manner we can.

Friends, we have been blessed in so many ways.

Let us try to be the hands and feet and minds for those who can no longer do for themselves but who have done so much for us. May this beautiful and meaningful day inspire us all to endeavor for peace and to continue the work we do today, on their behalf, when we get home.

That’s it. That is our charge.

I am honored to be part of our industry and to be here with you today. May God be gracious to you for your commitment to those who have served in the past and who continue to serve us every day."

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

All photos courtesy of the National Association of Landscape Professionals

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UAC NEWS

ur Plan yo entries!

s are Deadline hing. approac

GALA

GEORGIA URBAN AG COUNCIL

GEORGIA LANDSCAPE AWARDS

2017 GALA AWARDS

Award winners will be honored by their peers at the annual awards banquet in March 2018.

Early bird deadline: January 5, 2018

PLUS: Photos from grand award winners will be featured on UAC's home page for one year.

PLUS: A photo gallery of all projects will be added to UAC's website.

PLUS: Projects are featured in this magazine (see page 24).

PLUS: A "GALA WINNER" graphic badge will be placed on your UAC web profile.

PLUS: You'll get a "GALA WINNER" graphic badge to use on your website, correspondence, and business promotions.

PLUS: We'll give you a press release template to help you spread the word about your awards.

Save $$ on your entry fee!

Final deadline: January 19, 2018

Entering has never been easier

Learn about the awards, categories, judging 4 criteria Download templates and sample documents 4 Read success tips 4 Browse through past winning projects 4 As soon as you’re ready, upload your 4 documents and images through the online application.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

urbanagcouncil.com/gala-georgia-landscape-awards

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Not enough kudos for you?

UAC NEWS

How about posts featuring your projects on our consumer blog?

And appearing in our magazine ads for consumers?

Residential distinction and grand award-winning projects are featured on our consumer blog: galandscape pro.com My Home Improvement Atlanta magazine

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UAC NEWS

UAC member company celebrates milestone 10 years of serving the landscape industry

MNI Direct, founded in 2007, celebrates a milestone anniversary this year. Now in its

10th year of providing the professional landscape trade with quality plant material and hardlines, the company has grown to operate from four locations throughout the Southeast.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

MNI Direct’s customer base is landscape installation professionals, including design/ build firms, landscapers, and municipalities.

MNI Direct prides itself on a vast selection and speedy fulfillment, and excels in sourcing plants to meet customer requests. The firm also draws on their years of expertise in identifying topperforming plants for the Southeast to provide plant recommendations.

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understand what I needed, not what they were selling. This approach has made them the number one provider of plant material to our award-winning landscape department.”

Since its inception, Rogers has led MNI Direct to its current stature as a key player in the professional landscape supply market. Skeetter McCorkle, CEO of parent company McCorkle Nurseries, Inc., lauds his accomplishments, saying, “Tim has done a great job supporting the needs of architects and landscapers through direct services.: He has built a team that works hard to deliver quality products when and where the customer needs it.”

Tim Rogers, General Manager, believes their extensive knowledge of their product offerings is their source of strength. “We’re plant people, and that’s what we do best.”

MNI Direct currently serves customers from four locations: their original site in Dearing, GA; two Atlanta-area locations in Marietta, GA and Peachtree Corners, GA; and Piedmont, SC, in the greater Greenville area.

Todd Guillmette, owner of Unique Environmental Landscapes, spoke about his experience working with MNI Direct. “Business success is built on relationships and follow through. MNI Direct’s first objective was to

Looking forward, Rogers says, “As we enter our next phase of growth, we want to keep focusing on the things that have gotten us where we are: quality, customer service, and quick turnaround.”

About MNI Direct

About McCorkle Nurseries

MNI Direct (www.mnidirect.com) is a supplier of green goods and hardlines to the professional landscape trade. MNI Direct delivers trees, shrubs, groundcovers, perennials, and seasonal color to locations throughout the Southeast, and currently operates from four locations in Georgia and South Carolina. MNI Direct is a subsidiary of McCorkle Nurseries, Inc.

McCorkle Nurseries, Inc. (www.mccorklenurseries. com) is a family-owned nursery business founded in 1942 and located in Dearing, GA. In addition to being a licensed grower for most major plant brands, McCorkle Nurseries has its own line of top-performing plants, the Gardener’s Confidence® Collection (www.gardenersconfidence.com). The company founded The Center for Applied Nursery Research in 1996 (www.CANR.org), to advance horticultural research.

SAVE THE DATE

Visit urbanagcouncil.com for updates and to register.

Networking + Education Dinner

TOPIC: Dinner with Champions

SEP

DATE: Tuesday, September 26 TIME: 5:30 cash bar | 6:30 dinner PLACE: Heritage Sandy Springs | 6110 Blue Stone Rd NE | Atlanta GA 30328

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The Mentor Sessions

SEP

Mark Itzkovitz, WebTech

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Staying relevant in today's digital marketplace DATE: Thursday, September 28 TIME: 11:30 am - 1:30 pm, registration includes lunch PLACE: W.S. Pharr/Snellings Walters office

1117 Perimeter Center W | Atlanta, GA 30338

OCT

5th Annual UAC Sporting Clays Tournament

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Blast your troubles away | Win prizes | Eat BBQ GEORGIA

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Tuesday, October 31 & Wednesday, November 1

(Reception for attendees and exhibitors Tuesday night) PLACE: Perry GA & Fort Valley GA

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EDGE Expo Conference & Vendor Fair Belgard University DATE: Thursday, December 7 PLACE: Infinite Energy Center

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6400 Sugarloaf Parkway | Duluth GA 30097

Watch for details!

GALA

Georgia Landscape Awards GEORGIA URBAN AG COUNCIL

Early bird deadline: January 5, 2018 Final deadline: January 19, 2018

GEORGIA LANDSCAPE AWARDS

Details | Tips | Samples | Apply online: urbanagcouncil.com/gala-georgia-landscape-awards

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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UAC's Georgia Sod + Turf Producers Field Day

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URBAN AG COUNCIL

DATE: Thursday, October 12 TIME: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm PLACE: Blalock Lakes | 4075 New Corinth Road | Newnan GA 30263

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PEST 411

Fall webworms

Unsightly but won't hurt healthy trees

by Willie O. Chance, UGA Extension Two types of caterpillars make webs in trees: The Eastern tent caterpillar makes webs in the forks of the branches. They are more of a problem early in the spring.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Fall webworms can be up to one inch long.

They come in two color forms: those with black heads are yellowish white while those with red heads are brown. Fall webworms are covered with long, soft gray hairs.

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The fall webworm makes their webs on the ends of the branches and is more prevalent in the late summer and fall. Fall webworms are the most visible since their webs are located on the end of the branches. Their webs remain in the tree after the webworms leave and the webs can collect until there are many in a tree.

Fall webworm ID

Fall webworms can be up to one inch long. They come in two color forms: those with black heads are yellowish white while those with red heads are brown. Fall webworms are covered with long, soft gray hairs.

Behavior

Fall webworms will feed on more than 100 types of trees but they prefer trees like pecans, black walnut, mulberry, elm, sweetgum, willow, apple, ash and oak. I most often see them in pecan trees.

The caterpillars form fine silken webs on the ends of the branches. They will enlarge the webs if they need more leaves. They feed on the leaves

in these webs for a couple of weeks before they leave the trees to become pupae. These pupae eventually turn into a white moth, which may have black spots.

This moth can fly away to lay eggs on trees to start another generation of webworms.

There can be up to four generations of fall webworms in a year. The webworms survive the winter as pupae in cocoons in protected places.

Damage to trees

These caterpillars feed on the leaves of the tree. This hurts the tree somewhat, but the tree should recover. Healthy trees are able to withstand a great deal of insect damage to their leaves without lasting injury. I would not be concerned about insects feeding on healthy trees unless most of the leaves were gone. If trees are weakened, webworm infestation may damage or kill the tree.

Healthy trees can usually stand the loss of almost all their leaves. This is true of most deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves in the fall) but not needled, evergreen trees like pines, cedars, junipers and other conifers.

Evergreen trees with needles cannot withstand the loss of their leaves and must be better protected against this loss.

Fortunately, webworms do not like to attack needled evergreen trees.

Control

Since most trees will not die from caterpillar attack, I do not generally recommend spraying. If you want to control the caterpillars by spraying, you must treat the entire tree – perhaps more than once. You will usually need to hire a tree

PEST 411 service to do this. The person treating the tree will need to find some way to get the insecticide inside the webs to kill the caterpillars. For these reasons I generally suggest that we just live with these worms a while. They will eventually leave.

Photos courtesy of UGA Center for Urban Agriculture

If you do decide to spray; use insecticidal soap, horticultural oils or Bacillus thuringiensis to kill small caterpillars. These insecticides are less likely to kill the natural predators that keep the levels of these webworms low. These chemicals are not good at killing large caterpillars. Watch the southern-most branches of trees in early spring to find the webs before the caterpillars get large. For larger caterpillars, use a chemical like cyfluthrin or bifenthrin. Once again – find a way to get the insecticide into the webs for best control.

Some people cut the branches off or burn out these webs. This may damage the tree more than the caterpillars would. I do not recommend that you do this. Put up with the fall webworms for a while and they should go away on their own.

These pupae eventually turn into a white moth, which may have black spots.

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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HAVE YOU MET

John Brazel Yancey Bros. Co.

My first job in the green industry... working on the family farm in Southwest Georgia started from a pretty young age.

Outside of that, I started working at a farm supply/hardware store when I was 15.

John Brazel

Phone: 229-395-6957 1-877-YANCEYAG

The biggest challenges in my career have been...figuring

out that cycles in the economy were Address: 330 Lee Industrial Boulevard just that: cycles.

Austell GA 30168 Graduating from Web: www.YanceyAg.com college in 2006 things were still pretty good, but over the next couple of years when the recession hit it was really hard to stay positive and keep going. As I’ve seen things come back it has been really rewarding.

Email:

john_brazel@yanceybros.com

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The people who have influenced my career are...first and foremost were my parents.

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If I had it to do over again, I would.. probably not change much. I have a good job in an industry that I am very passionate about serving. All in all, I’d say I’m pretty happy with where things are.

The thing I like most about my career is....

being able to deal with folks who have the same passions that I do and help make their businesses stronger.

One piece of advice I would give to someone entering the green industry today is...find your niche, learn it well, and

keep up with the technologies. The green industry is one of constant innovation, and the most successful are the ones who are not afraid to adapt.

One thing that really annoys me is...when someone doesn’t do what they said they would.

When I'm not working, I like to...be

outdoors doing something. Whether it is hunting, fishing, working with cattle, or just walking through the woods. That takes up most of my free time.

They are two of the hardest working people that I have ever met and instilled that same work ethic in me and my brother as we were growing up.

Beyond that, I have had the pleasure of working with some outstanding companies and managers who took the time to teach me the business.

My biggest career success so far has been..my first tractor sale. I started working for a dealer in college just sweeping the floors and that kind of thing. A customer came in early one Saturday morning and we started talking about a tractor on the yard while waiting on his to be brought around to the shop. About 30 minutes later he just stopped and said, “I’ll take it.” After that I was hooked.

The one thing most responsible for my success is...I try to constantly keep learning,

whether it is about my products, the competition, or just the industry and applications. I want my customers to feel confident that when they need an answer, I can be the one to get it for them.

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ME & MY MENTOR

Always learning

Taking advantage of opportunities for growth

by Phillip Paley, Paley Landscaping+ Q: “How has professional development helped you, both in your business and personally?�

Professional development has been a huge boost to my career! I am a big advocate of continuing education. Every fall and winter I try to go to as many conferences, seminars, and speakers as I can.

When John Deere bought Lesco and they started John Deere Landscape University in Chattanooga, I went four times. Besides being a nice, quick get-a-way without the wife and kids, it allowed me to focus on my business. A huge benefit was being able to network with other landscapers from Birmingham, Nashville, and Tri City. We were able to say to each other, "I ran into this recently. How have you handled it?" and "I charged Mrs. Jones this much to do this, what have you done in that situation?"

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

I spent a lot of time in those business classes.

They brought in fabulous speakers like Anne Obarski and Tom Shay. One thing that Anne taught me was to celebrate the victories. We all work hard, and we all need to spend some

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time enjoying the fruits of our labor. Maybe you picked up a lucrative new client or got paid for a landscape installation you worked really hard on. Go out for a nice dinner, go away for the weekend, go fishing - whatever recharges your batteries - but enjoy that time as it was well deserved.

Tom has a card that he has everybody fill out at the end of his lecture series and says to put down three things that you are going to work on in your business. Then, about a month later he mails it back to you. I still have the card on my desk. It says:

1.

Be more organized.

Organizing is not one of my strengths, but I continue to work on it.

2.

Read more books about business.

I'm not always consistent about reading books, but I have made a conscious effort to read more articles about business. I like reading what people like Warren Buffet, Soichiro Honda, Oprah Winfrey, Marcus Lemonis and Sheryl Sandberg say about business and how they have dealt with a variety of issues, both good and bad.

I grew up in the Midwest where it was lush and green and beautiful. Then I attended a small liberal arts college in New York City and was aghast at the lack of grass and trees.

I quickly realized that I loved the outdoors and wanted a career that would enable me to work in the fresh air and sunshine while making a good living. Since my father forced me to mow the yard for what seemed like my entire childhood, landscaping as a career was an obvious choice.

Phillip Paley, Paley Landscaping+

The best revenge is massive success." ~ Frank Sinatra

I earned a Certificate of Horticulture specializing in landscape design at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, NE. After several years operating Paley Landscaping in the Midwest (Minneapolis, Chicago, and Omaha), Paley Landscaping+ started operation in Atlanta, GA in Fall 2004, and has been going full steam ever since.

Marcus Lemonis' show, "The Profit" on CNBC, is a great show to watch and glean from. He talks about the "3-P"s (people, process, profit) and "know your numbers." If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch an episode and you will look at your business differently!

Continue to follow up with people.

I work really hard to always follow up with people. Someone a number of years ago said to me, "I don't know if you are the best landscaper or the cheapest, but you are the only landscaper who got back to me so the job is yours."

3.

There is an enormous amount of professional development conferences, seminars, and webinars to choose from. UAC had a really great one this past winter with Steven Cohen of GreenMark Consulting*, right here in Atlanta.

I'm so happy that Mary Kay was able to bring him in. Besides hearing from someone who has been in the trenches, worked for big companies, and owned his own landscaping business, he was able to show us how to set up systems for our companies. These systems make our companies more valuable, and if for some reason we can't be there, one of our people can step in and run things.

* Learn more from GreenMark Consulting.

Read their article on page 30 and join their closed Facebook group created just for Georgia UAC members: facebook.com/groups/GeorgiaUrbanAGCouncil Real-time help and support for your

landscape and business issues, all at no cost to you.

Most days, you probably don’t even think about insurance.

But when

all hell

breaks loose, Who do you want as your

WARRIOR? EMPLOYEE BENEFITS | PROPERTY | AUTO WORKERS COMPENSATION O

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Association Strength | Industry Expertise Cost Containment | Flexibility Let’s talk Steve Harmon Will Pharr

770-396-9600 | snellingswalters.com

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Almost every other profession requires its people to go to continuing education: realtors, insurance agents, electricians, plumbers, and lawyers.

Even mechanics and CDL drivers are strongly encouraged to attend continuing education courses. In our industry, we want to be viewed as professionals, not Bubba and his truck. When we raise the bar for expectations, we also raise the bar for perceptions, pay and outlook.

ME & MY MENTOR

17

HEALTH & BENEFITS

Employee wellness programs What they're all about

Information provided by United Benefit Advisors for Snellings Walters Insurance Agency Wellness programs are defined as initiatives designed to maintain or improve employee health. Incentive-

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

based employee wellness and chronic disease management programs have been Numerous studies demonstrate a heavily publicized as link between workforce health and a the “healthy option” company’s bottom line and suggest to improve employee performance and that building a culture of wellness cuts reduce health care claims and keeps workers healthy and costs before problems on the job. arise. Articles from major industry publications and data from some of the most highly recognized research organizations confirm the positive impact employers receive from implementing wellness programs.

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So, if wellness programs are so great, why haven’t all companies initiated some type of program?

According to the 2016 UBA Health Plan Survey, only 18.4 percent of all employers offered comprehensive wellness programs. Not only is this a 2.7% decrease from the previous year, it means that fewer than one in five employers offer a wellness program.

Some of the top reasons employers are slow to adopt wellness programs, according to industry experts:

lack of time and resources 4 AStartup costs 4 Not knowing the financial rewards 4 Community grant and the 4 subsidies from healthprograms, care legislation,

often require employers to fill out piles of paperwork — a serious hassle for employers already stretched for resources.

Even with added financial incentives and the potential for a drop in premiums, many employers are still hesitant to start wellness programs, experts say. Benefits advisors have noted another major reason is that a company’s key decision makers want more information before they decide to administer a wellness program. In fact, a major obstacle is persuading a CEO that a wellness program will benefit the company’s bottom line. As with wellness itself, the results in a company’s program aren’t going to be black and white. Insurance premiums might go down, but it’s nearly impossible to determine by how much. While quantifiable data can’t easily be measured with wellness programs, what can be measured is the value to employees that a wellness program brings.

ROV, not ROI

Initially, wellness programs were tacked on to an employee’s benefits and consisted of just the basics — physical activity, nutrition, and smoking cessation. According to Travis Horne, MBA, who is the director of health & well-being at Borislow Insurance in Methuen, Massachusetts, employers used to have a six or eight week wellness program that was basically one-and-done in terms of its success. “The analogy is like throwing spaghetti on the wall. If it sticks, great, if not, then try something else.”

Fortunately, as wellness awareness has increased, so has the need to adapt these programs to each company.

“Return on value is definitely the current trend. The true care for our human capital (i.e., employees) is recognized more often in conversations with the C-Suite of executives.” ~ Shelley R. Wagner, Wellness Coordinator Williams-Manny Insurance Group, Rockford, IL

HEALTH & BENEFITS Wellness programs are more commonly being offered to all employees, not just those on the health plan, with efforts to connect with the entire workforce.

Rachel Parsons, C.W.W.S., wellness coordinator at 44North in Cadillac, Michigan, concurs.

“Employers are trying to get their employees to see the approach as not saving the employer money on health care, but on trying to improve the lives of the employees and being the happiest and healthiest they can be.”

“Employers, now more than ever, are understanding the importance of helping employees maintain a healthy lifestyle by promoting preventative care and regular screenings in order to ward off disease and prevent chronic illnesses. Wellness is an investment to one of their most important assets — their employees,” said Jennifer Vasko, internal wellness coordinator with The Wilson Agency in Anchorage, Alaska.

~ Jennifer Vasko, Internal Wellness Coordinator The Wilson Agency, Anchorage, AK

Director of population health and well-being at Massachusetts-based EBS, Valeria S. Tivnan, MPH, Med, said that when talking about the value of wellness, it’s important to note the study done by Raymond Fabius, MD, R. Dixon Thayer, and their colleagues, which found a correlation between companies that invest in wellness and their financial health. This study concluded that companies that build a culture of health by focusing on the well-being and safety of their workforce yield greater value for their investors.

After all, she said, “a company’s best asset is their human capital and what company can grow long term with sick, disengaged employees, right?”

Prevention/wellness programs Among plans where employers provide wellness, more than 72 percent offer a health risk assessment. While still high, this represents a decrease of four percent from the prior year, according to the 2016 UBA Health Plan Survey. Also, compared to last year, seminars and workshops decreased, while on-site coaching saw an increase. Other wellness services being provided, such as physical exams, blood draws, and incentives or rewards remained largely unchanged.

Among plans where employers provide wellness 72.5% offer a health risk assessment

67.7% offer incentive awards “In addition to Dr. Fabius’ study,” said 67% offer a physical exam or blood draw Tivnan, “the John 54.6% offer coaching Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public 38.8% offer seminars/workshops Health has created the 13.3% offer other benefits Institute for Health and Productivity under Source: 2016 UBA Health Plan Survey the direction of Ron www.ubabenefits.com/wisdom/surveys Z. Goetzel, PhD. The mission of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies (IHPS) is to ‘bridge the gap between academia, the business community, and the health care policy world by bringing academic resources into policy debates and day-to-day business decisions, and bringing health and productivity management issues into academia.’ To develop an evidence-based and result-oriented wellness program, it is crucial to get information from reliable sources to ensure the design, implementation, and evaluation of your wellness program is done properly.”

Feeding employer engagement

For many employers, kick-starting a full-blown wellness program can be overwhelming. Will the program include biometric screening? A wellness fair? Gym membership? No more cookies in the snack room vending machine? It’s a lot for companies to swallow.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“More and more employers are starting to spend money on promoting within the workforce as a way to educate and stimulate healthy behaviors internally as well as something that can be brought home to the family. Wellness is a staple when it comes to reducing premium costs, one that employers cannot afford to ignore.”

Tivnan continued to say that based on this and other wellness studies, wellness programs are not a “nice to have,” but a “need to have” benefit for companies moving forward.

19

HEALTH & BENEFITS

"Good benefits help attract employees and increase employee retention."

0.63% 1.89% disagree neutral

35.58% agree

61.89% strongly agree

The secret, experts say, is just like healthy eating: Exercise good portion control and don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Starting small and implementing just a few features in the beginning can allow a company and the participants to focus on achievable goals.

As a company adopts more programs, its culture accepts more “buy-in” to wellness, and participation increases — which can translate into real savings, experts say.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

One easy and inexpensive way to start is to use programs created by insurance carriers, said Mark S. Gaunya, GBA, a principal at Borislow Insurance. Carriers know wellness can help shrink health care costs, and many of these programs come at little or no extra cost. In fact, some even offer premium discounts to encourage employers to get their workforce on board.

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Even when starting with baby steps, an employer needs to have a solid strategy and clear goals for its wellness initiatives, experts say.

Don't go it alone

Something that Wagner has noticed as wellness programs have gotten more complex is that HR staff has become overworked with being the “wellness champion.” This stress can be reduced by getting employees more involved and forming a wellness committee. Aside from spreading the workload, cohesive wellness teams provide many advantages, such as offering diverse ideas, representation from various parts of the organization, and providing stability and continuity when staff leaves. It is encouraged to

have both healthy and unhealthy members on the committee to gain perspective on what would help those who are struggling with their wellness journey.

Wellness is a win-win

One of the best long-term, health-promoting and cost-containment opportunities available to employers today is keeping low-risk individuals from becoming high-risk and helping highrisk individuals reduce their need for medical services. Numerous studies demonstrate a link between workforce health and a company’s bottom line and suggest that building a culture of wellness cuts claims and keeps workers healthy and on the job.

Productivity and retention

Based on findings from the 2016 UBA Benefit Opinions Survey (www.ubabenefits.com/ wisdom/surveys), a whopping 97 percent of employers either agree or strongly agree that good benefits help attract employees and increase their retention. In addition, two-thirds of employers believe that good benefits increase employee productivity.

These programs don’t necessarily need to be expansive or expensive to have an impact on employee health and costs. Small, relatively inexpensive steps can go a long way in improving employee health and generating heath care savings for employers.

Steps to success

Customize your program: One size does not fit all. Evaluate your specific needs and goals, and build your program around them.

Go in stages: If you have a limited budget, start with the short-term programs available through carriers. Midterm, begin to adopt programs that increase participation while improving morale. Longterm, prepare your organization to take advantage of health care reform incentives and develop a program that continues to add activities and keep people engaged.

1.

HEALTH & BENEFITS

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

21

HEALTH & BENEFITS Start sooner rather than later: Don’t let your limited resources or budget keep you from taking advantage of the opportunity to do the right thing. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results.

2.

Get the right help: Implementing a wellness program takes time and dedication to see it through. “Seeking the advice of a qualified wellness expert can bring you many other advantages in addition to saving you time. An outside resource who is specialized and has the benefit of shared employer expertise, communications templates, planning, administration and coaching skills can make it easy for employers — a quarterback, if you will,” said Lisa Weston, CWC, CWPD, director of wellbeing program management for BAGNALL in Phoenix, Arizona.

3.

Above all, don’t give up: Once a program is in place, it is easy to become complacent, and the program can start stagnating. It is critical to keep employees

4.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

FIFTH ANNUAL

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engaged. Continuing to build on the existing programs, making activities more meaningful and, over time, changing the choices people make ensures the highest chance of success.

“The reality is that companies are much more open to a program that does not tax their resources or cost a lot and is sustainable over time,” Vasko said. Parsons added, “Now more than ever, there is a definite passion and drive to help others and that’s a really cool and refreshing thing to see.”

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS | PROPERTY | AUTO WORKERS COMPENSATION

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SAVE THE DATE PRO PROJECT

Taming the slope to gain entertaining space Project by Bennett Design & Landscape bennettdesign.com

The homeowner requested a formal back yard with a pool and areas for entertaining. The

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

property was sloped approximately 5.5' from the upper back yard to the lower back yard so we began by creating terraced areas that would serve as large landings for lounging and a progression through the garden for access from the back screened porch to the pool. The pool served as a focal point with water features and large planters as the visual end of the back yard.

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Before Initially, the back yard was overgrown and sloped. Through permitting we cleared out a significant portion of the overgrown plant material along with some surrounding trees

Before to allow for more light. Design considerations were also made to not disturb the existing root systems of the remaining trees for future impact.

PRO PROJECT The most important feature of this garden is the formal architecture and clean lines created by the design of the masonry and plantings. The entire back yard was backdropped with an evergreen hedge to maintain the formality. Evergreen plant material was used as much as possible to reinforce the clean lines of the masonry, with colorful plantings to soften the edges and accent the garden.

We created large green spaces with lawns surrounded by plantings and perennials for a cutting garden.

In all, the elegant lines of the garden and hardscapes created a peaceful, formal garden with multiple large lounging and dining areas.

GEORGIA LANDSCAPE AWARDS

AWARD WINNER: Distinction

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The choice of a dark masonry stacked stone against the white pool terrace and caps of the wall were used to create formality in the garden. The contrast of the pool finish was also chosen to showcase the clean edge of the pool coping.

GALA

GEORGIA URBAN AG COUNCIL

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WHAT THE TECH?

Measuring up

Is your website profitable?

by Kevin Bossons, WebTech Marketing Services Understanding the profitability of your website

At the end of the day, the specific key performance indicators that you use to gauge your website performance and marketing efforts should be directly matched to your marketing objectives and activities.

means generating and reviewing monthly reports that convey meaningful performance data.

These reports (typically generated by in-house staff or an external marketing agency) contain information on visits, leads, downloads, signups, revenue and ROI and compare these numbers to past periods and averages.

In addition to reporting on your key performance indicators (KPIs) your website reporting should contain observations on existing performance and recommendations for tweaking your website and marketing strategies.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Measuring success

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Website visitors find your website through many different sources. These sources, or channels, are usually (but not limited to) organic search, paid search, direct/unknown traffic and referring websites.

While visitors are great, the real goal is to convert these visitors into leads and customers. When a visitor calls your business or submits a contact form that visitor is then considered a lead. When a lead makes a purchase they are considered a customer.

Here are two ways to measure profitability for a service-based website:

Assign a dollar amount to each lead which 4 can be compared against marketing spend.

This is a good way to ballpark how things are going in real time; however, the data is not totally accurate.

Add customer revenue data to website 4 reporting. By reporting actual project

revenue for each converted lead, you will have a realistic ROI. This is tough as it can take days, weeks, or even months to finalize a sale.

Ideally, you want to do both if possible. Keep in mind these numbers are somewhat broad because each website and business is different.

A lead in one market can have a much different value than another market and how leads are valuated also differs.

Organic search

If your website marketing effort is focused on organic traffic (free clicks from search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo), organic visitor trend data is an important metric to help gauge whether your overall efforts are leading to more potential customers. Keep an eye on conversion rate, or the number of visitors divided by the number of leads.

If your website is getting more visitors, your conversion rate should stay the same or go up. If your conversion rate falls it can mean the additional visitors are less qualified, which can happen if your website becomes visible for non-commercial and/or unqualified search terms.

Paid search traffic

If using paid search marketing via text and image ads on platforms such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn is your focus, there are specific metrics to keep an eye on.

WHAT THE TECH? The metric we tend to focus on is cost per lead, which is the advertising cost divided by the number of leads in a given time period.

Let’s say you spent $10,000 last month and received 100 combined calls and form submissions. This would give you a cost per lead of $100. Ideally over time this cost per lead value will either remain consistent or become lower.

Many clients tend to focus on cost per click and overall budget numbers while what should be front and center is the cost per lead trend data and ROI of advertising spend.

Referral and social traffic

Referral clicks, or people arriving on your website from clicking a link on a different website can account from 10% to 50% of your overall site visitors. For instance, if you have a Houzz profile and have included your website link in your profile, visitors who click that link will be taken right to your website. This should show up in your analytics reporting under the referring website segment.

It is very important to keep track of these visitors, specifically who is converting and the referring website they are coming from.

Keeping close watch on your website load speed time is critical. The time it takes for your website to load directly impacts your site visitors, who oftentimes will close a site if it is taking too long to load.

Google (https://developers.google.com/ speed/pagespeed/insights) and Pingdom (https://tools.pingdom.com) offer great tools to check your site load time. You ideally want your website to load in under two seconds.

Use data that matters

At the end of the day, the specific key performance indicators that you use to gauge your website performance and marketing efforts should be directly matched to your marketing objectives and activities. These KPIs should be decided during the planning stages of any marketing campaign, then tracked and clearly reported on an ongoing basis.

The time, effort and money invested into internet marketing campaigns are only properly used when clear and actionable reports are being created, read and discussed by key members of your business and marketing teams.

About the author Kevin Bossons specializes in designing and building websites, and Search Engine Optimization, Link Building campaigns and Paid Search (PPC) campaigns.

User engagement/site load time

Each month you should look at user engagement metrics such as site-wide average time on site, average number of pages visited and average time it takes for your website to fully load. These metrics help gauge user engagement; keeping a close eye on these details will allow you to identify and remedy website issues.

E: kevin@wtmarketing.com P: 404.348.4921 W: www.wtmarketing.com

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

See a lot of people coming from Yelp and converting? Perhaps advertising on Yelp would be a good next step to increase the number of conversions in the future, provided the cost per lead is within an acceptable range. Social clicks are people coming from Facebook, Twitter, etc. and can be very important for your individual marketing efforts.

It is also important to compare your pages against other similar pages to find opportunities for improvements. For instance, if you have a group of pages that describe your services and you see a major drop of engagement on one of them, you may have a page that needs rewriting or updating.

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BUSINESS

Hip homepages

Trends are always changing, and that includes web design

by Chris Heiler Grab a cup of coffee and open up that flashy website of yours – preferably on a mobile device.

We’ve got some work to do.

Moving social media links, and adding more white space, can create a welcoming header that will attract visitors.

Let’s take a look at how your company’s website reflects the trends in web design that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.

web design 4Full-width Backgrounds have been eliminated in favor of

space is your friend 4White Let the elements on your website breath. Adding

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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more space between text, images and other design elements has been a popular trend in web design. Simplifying and adding more white space aligns with the mobile-first approach we just touched on.

home for social media links 4AThenew current design trend is to place social media

stretching websites to the edge of the browser window. In many cases this full-width design has eliminated sidebars on most web pages.

Without these sidebars, navigation has moved into the header of most websites, simplifying the user experience. “Sticky” navigation is also becoming more popular, where the navigational links of a webpage seem to “stick” at the top as you scroll down the page.

a mobile-first approach to the design of your website, which starts with responsive web design.

Built using responsive design, your website will automatically adjust to whatever device is viewing it. If a visitor pulls up your website on their iPhone, your site will “respond” to that unique device and render a more positive user experience without the annoying zooming, scrolling and tiny buttons.

icons and links in the footer of a website, as opposed to in the header which was common just a few years ago. Visitors know to scroll to the footer if they are interested in bouncing to your Facebook or LinkedIn page.

What about Facebook widgets and other social elements? Just get rid of them.

visual ‘hero header’ Spotlight on career opportunities 4AA hero header is the use of a hero image and text4 Lawn and landscape companies are beginning to at the top of your homepage and other pages.

These can be a fixed image or an image slider.

Short video clips are becoming popular as well.

This prominently placed hero image and text is often the first visual a visitor will encounter on your website.

Including a call-to-action with a link to drive visitors deeper into your website is a popular strategy on a homepage.

4If your website is like most in our industry,

Mobile-first approach to design 40-50 percent of visitors are most likely visiting your website on a mobile device. This calls for

follow the trend set in other industries by doing a much better job showcasing the career path and opportunities that exist within the company.

The homepage is a logical spot for one or two killer testimonials.

This includes detailed listings of open positions, digitizing the application process and even separate blogs for recruiting purposes.

images 4Professional of your people

People want to do business with real people.

So show your people on your website. I’m not

BUSINESS just referring to the boring headshots of your executive team. Show your employees in-action inside and outside the walls of your company.

Stop talking about how professional you are and show it instead.

use of video 4Purposeful The use of video is a trend that hasn’t slowed

This is where relevancy can be highly effective: use customer comments that speak about your specific services.

your site 4Secure SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol

down. What I would personally like to see – already adopted in many other industries – are companies being more thoughtful in how they use video on their website as well as improved production quality.

customer 4Leverage testimonials more effectively

The time has come to remove the “testimonials” page from your website where you share all of your glowing customer feedback. Instead, leverage your absolute best (and most relevant) customer testimonials throughout the site.

The homepage is a logical spot for one or two killer testimonials, as are your service pages.

that establishes an encrypted connection between the browser and a server. In addition to this extra security measure, SSL sites (sites accessed with an https protocol) may receive a positive rankings boost from search engines.

In my opinion, how secure your website is will continue to grow in importance as a positive ranking signal for the search engines like Google.

There is really no reason not to implement this security protocol at this point.

Reprinted with permission from the May 2017 issue of Lawn & Landscape.

For more, visit lawnandlandscape. com.

Does your current website reflect these web design trends? If not, it’s probably time for a refresh and re-build.

About the author

The author is the founder and president of Landscape Leadership, a green industry marketing agency.

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29

BUSINESS

Workforce development series

Selecting and onboarding the best people

by William Eastman, GreenMark Consulting Group This is the third article in our series on Workforce Development.

Given the current economy, it is getting harder to attract the right people. Nobody in the landscape industry has a people nursery where they grow their own - talent is out there!

The first article (“What Makes People People”) laid the groundwork by helping you understand what motivates people. In the second article (“New Models of Compensation or Pay4Performance”) we showed you how to design smart compensation that drives performance.

This article moves on to the selection and onboarding process.

What you need to know

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

1.

30

Eligibility and suitability.

There are two questions to answer when reviewing job applicants: "Can they?" and "Will they?" question is about eligibility.

4 ThDoese "Can" this individual have the KSC (knowl-

edge, skills, and certifications) necessary to do the job?

How to onboard new employees. Because of job demands, the usual practice is to put them right to work. This shortchanges the company, not giving the owner time to share their vision of how the company operates, how people work together, and expectations for the quality of work and the customer’s experience.

3.

What you need to do Eligibility and suitability.

Every new employee will require some time before they justify their paychecks. By finding people who have the right track record you reduce their learning curve to days, not weeks or months. Answer the first question first: "Can they?"If they cannot, don’t waste your time with a face-to-face meeting.

1.

eview the position description and 4 Rdecide the KSCs - knowledge, skill, and

certifications (example - certified arborist, drivers license, etc.) required for success.

rite your job ad listing the KSCs and 4 Wrequire a one-page resume responding to the list. Do not give a phone number; have them send the document by email.

the resumes into two groups: the YES 4 Spileortmeets your KSC requirements, the rest are placed in the NO pile. If you have any MAYBEs, put those aside until last and review this pile against the YES resumes, then resort into YES or NO.

e "Will" question is about fit. Is this indi Send emails to the YES individuals with a 4 Thvidual a good fit for my company and the 4 date and time for the interview or a thank work group?

Screening for "Can" and "Will."

The "Can" question is answered by a structured resume. The "Will" question can only be answered through a face-to-face interview.

2.

you to the NOs, requesting permission to keep the application on file.

2.

Because they "Can" doesn’t mean they should work for you.

It is critical during the interview to not tell them how to get hired. By telling people everything about the job upfront, you have given clues on

BUSINESS what they need to say. You need the truth; letting them talk with no hints is the best approach.

4 sk predetermined questions and make no 4 Adecision during the interview. Start with Decide if anyone else should be in the meeting.

questions about their resume and have them give examples of their best work and what they learned from failure.

with job information, compensation, 4 Candloseother details about the position last. fter everyone has been interviewed, rank 4 Aorder the list and call the best candidate with the job offer.

Onboarding. The usual method of onboarding is to put them to work immediately. Avoid this! Explain your vision for the company and your expectations for the job, teamwork, and how they treat customers.

3.

ave them read and sign your employee 4 Hhandbook.

Have them read and sign their employment 4 contract and complete any financial information, such as W2, etc.

4

Take them to a job site and introduce them to their work group. Focus on getting them comfortable and aligned with your expectations. This will be the best half-day investment you can make.

Where you can get help Writing and posting job ads.

GreenMark has experience writing compelling job ads, using all of the industry and social media options. If you need a template or a better understanding of where to advertise for employees, join our Facebook Group, Georgia Urban AG Council. We will help you up your game.

Join the group Your best choice to get help is to join the closed Facebook Group, Georgia

Urban AG Council.

Joining is easy. Just go to this page: facebook.com/groups/GeorgiaUrbanAGCouncil then click on the "Join Group" button.

Once inside you will receive real-time help and support for your landscape and business issues from GreenMark, all at no cost to you.

Additionally, we will make parts of our Best Practices Library available for download.

I look forward to seeing you inside.

Onboarding.

The team at GreenMark has over four decades of experience onboarding people in a way that is smart and fast. If you are interested in getting new people on the same page with you and reducing their learning curve, join our Facebook Group, Georgia Urban AG Council. We will help you build an effective process.

~ Bill

Summary

Given the current economy, it is getting harder to attract the right people. Nobody in the landscape industry has a people nursery where they grow their own - talent is out there!

For more information contact William Eastman at 804.433.3886 or Join our Facebook Group dedicated to Georgia Urban Ag Council members: Georgia Urban AG Council.

About the author William Eastman is a Business Management Consultant with GreenMark and the Managing Partner for Intellectual Property at the GrowthWorx – a business research and product development company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

For more information: P: 804.433.3886 E: weastman@greenmarkgroup.com W: www.greenmarkgroup.com

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

4

Give them a personal tour of the facility while telling them the company story.

Introduce them to the people they need to know.

Interviewing.

If you need help developing a script of questions or structuring the interview to cut the BS, join our Facebook Group, Georgia Urban AG Council.

We will help you structure a winning interview process.

31

BUSINESS

Get busy being smarter

Three simple ways you can run a smarter company Mark Bradley's Corner This year is looking to be another strong year for the landscape industry.

Contractors I speak with are busy, customers seem to be spending, and opportunities are out there for companies of all sizes.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

There are hundreds of ways you can reduce unbillable time and keep your crews focused on what they come to work to do every day: to generate value for the customer and revenue for the company.

32

But anyone in this industry knows that nothing comes easy.

Challenges crop up, even when times are good. Here are three ways great landscape companies are rising up to meet these new challenges – or steer around them – to maximize their profit this year.

Reduce your dependence on labor: do more with equipment + technology. Despite some landscape contractors considering themselves "equipment junkies," most of the contractors I meet are underequipped. The idea of having monthly payments scares off a lot of companies. Despite once-in-a-lifetime type of interest rates, many companies won’t invest in equipment until they can purchase it with their own capital. Or they keep equipment past its prime, because it doesn’t have any "payments."

1.

In a busy economy, it’s never more important to be properly equipped. The right equipment and work tools allow your crews to do more work in less time. This is extremely important for two reasons:

a shortage of labor supply, we must 4 With get creative with ways we can do more work with less staff.

need to capitalize on as many of the 4 We opportunities (jobs) that we can while

they are available. Equipment allows us to complete jobs in less time, adding a few days – or even weeks – of extra opportunity in the season.

Beyond even these reasons, being well-equipped gives us some other powerful tools to outsmart and out-manage our competitors.

When we complete our jobs in less time 4 (labor hours), we lower our costs of

production. Now we’ve got more control when pricing work competitively (or not); we can choose to improve profit or we can reduce our price

By reducing time to complete jobs, we can 4 finish more work in a season (or a week, if

we’re in maintenance). It’s highly likely we can grow our revenue without increasing overhead expenses (*authors note: I treat equipment as a job-cost, not overhead).

Growing sales without growing overhead is an effective way to either grow our profits, or reduce our overhead markups – which makes our prices more competitive.

And while we’re on the topic of equipment, here’s a few key tips I’ve learned in my business over the years:

Don’t be cheap on equipment. Focus on 4 the productivity gains you’ll get from

your equipment. Savings on labor can easily outweigh a few hundred dollars in equipment payments. If you can use an $800/mo skid steer 3 days a week, it’s only costing you $8.33/hr, plus fuel and repairs.

Even if good labor wasn’t in short supply, you’d never find labor that will work for that cheap and get that much done!

BUSINESS Standardize your equipment. Equipping 4 crews with same models and brands makes

it easier/cheaper to stock spare parts, filters, etc. It’s also easier to train employees on the use and care of your equipment and tools.

In the age-old debate of whether you 4 should own equipment, or lease/finance it,

remember that the biggest cost of equipment is production downtime when it breaks down. Lost revenue due to lost productivity is like the bottom of the iceberg – you don’t see it as easily, but it dwarfs the costs that you can see.

Think of software or technology like 4 equipment for the office. If your company is still paperwork heavy you’ve got too much overhead, too many mistakes, and your spending too much time tracking these mistakes instead of planning your work so you avoid them!

2.

Spend more on key staff (and attract better staff while doing it!). My experience is that too many contractors try hire the wrong kind of staff. They try to increase profits by keeping payroll costs low. For some companies this can work, but it’s not for everyone.

Unfortunately, many smaller or less-systemized contractors try to hire the same type of staff, but they lack the necessary systems, procedures or even supervision to keep these staff productive.

Left to make decisions in a complex environment (e.g. more complicated/ variable jobs), cheap staff cost companies tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue through mistakes, poor decisions, or just lack of motivation.

• mature • has well-developed systems and procedures • has a strong layer of great middle-management • and/or has consistent types of jobs

• young/newer • hasn't developed strong systems and procedures • lacks a strong layer of middle management • and/or has jobs that are highly variable in nature

Lower field wages can be a good strategy. These kinds of companies are like McDonald's.

Systems drive the company and field crews aren't often asked to think / plan / manage independently. They simply need to execute the systems and report problems.

Hiring at low wages might be costing you more money than you're saving. Mistakes or bad planning are expensive when you consider the revenue lost because of these mistakes. Better staff will cost more, but will result in better production with less supervision.

The average three-person landscape install crew generates around $2,500/day of revenue (finished work). Losing a half day to a mistake, forgotten material, poor productivity, or poor planning costs your company over a thousand dollars in missed revenue opportunity! If a more skilled (and more highly paid) foreman can help you avoid just a few mistakes a year, they can contribute to more profit – even if they increase your payroll. They can help justify their wages with less supervision (less demands on your time!), better training and development (of their laborers), and better company culture.

3.

The 3 "R"s of unbillable time: Reduce, Reduce, Reduce.

Average companies work hard, but they accept problems as a normal part of doing business.

They’re happy when things go right and frustrated when things go wrong – but they’re “too busy” to truly spend time to eliminate problems that cause waste and inefficiency.

It’s easy when sales are good to ignore small problems, but ignoring those problems is extremely costly! Pay extreme attention to your company’s unbillable time. These are hours that are spent working (i.e. on payroll) but they don’t complete any revenue-generating work. These hours are extremely expensive.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Established, system-driven companies that perform repeatable work can get the best of (cheaper) employees who aren’t independent, motivated thinkers. The company’s systems, supervision, and procedures drive the correct behaviors and with repeatable work; there’s little opportunity for major mistakes.

If your company is...

33

BUSINESS Learn the true cost of your unbillable time and teach all your key staff. Teach them not just the costs of payroll, but the real cost of waste and problems by using lost revenue as the metric.

Brainstorm a list of daily/weekly obstacles that cost valuable production time.

only have higher profits, but they lower their overhead (as a percentage of their sales), which helps them compete against just about anyone.

I’ve based the following sample on a single threeperson crew. For each mistake we estimate how many crew hours are lost per week, and per year (based on a 36-week season) due to the waste.

Then we look how much potential revenue is lost due to these mistakes (assuming the average three-person design-build crew completes $2,500/day of finished work).

Start with the four simple, avoidable problems listed in the table below. The list of simple mistakes can go on and on, but just those four items alone represent over $30,000 in lost potential revenue for each and every three-man crew you have!!! Smart companies that grow revenue through reduced unbillable time not

Problem (hrs based on 3-person crew)

Exhaust that list and then have the ‘big thinkers’ in your company brainstorm more strategic ways to reduce unbillable time:

you contract out the washing/ 4 Could cleaning of your trucks – and keep your crews on the jobs longer?

you use vendors for deliveries more 4 Could often – and keep your crews on-site and producing revenue?

you use technology to reduce 4 Could paperwork and keep better track of on-time job performance?

There are hundreds of ways you can reduce unbillable time in your company and keep your crews focused on what they come to work to do every day: to generate value for the customer and revenue for the company.

Man hrs/week

Man hrs/year

Potential revenue lost

2.5 hours

90 hours

$9,000

Talking on cellphones: 8 min (each) per day

2 hours

72 hours

$7,200

Waiting at gas station: 10 min, 2x per week

1 hour

36 hours

$3,600

Trips to shop/vendor for forgotten items

3 hours

108 hours

$10,800

Extending breaks: 5 min (each) per day

Mark Bradley’s Corner is an occasional advertorial series sponsored by LMN. For more info, visit golmn.com

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

This advertorial was reprinted with permission from Lawn & Landscape’s May 2017 issue. For more, visit lawnandlandscape.com.

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35

BUSINESS

Soaring into the future

Will drones help your green industry business? from Irrigation & Green Industry magazine

When you hear the word "drone," what pops to mind? A piece of

military equipment?

A monotonal public speaker? A type of bee that keeps its queen fed? How about ‘a revolutionary landscape contractor tool?’

Photo courtesy of Chatham Landscape Services

I recently attended a demonstration

by Husqvarna. One of the things they showed us was a video of their prototype drone and a UTV, in a race to deliver replacement trimmer string to a man working out in a remote field.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

UAC member, Chatham Landscape Services, used a drone to photograph this project for a Georgia Landscape Awards entry.

36

A split screen showed the elapsed time for both the UTV driver and the unmanned drone.

The UTV, bouncing over dirt roads, took five minutes and eleven seconds to bring the string to the crew member; the drone: one minute, four seconds. By the time the UTV brought the string, the crewman was already using the string delivered by drone. One of the most important features of a drone is the time saved.

That was fun to watch. But drones, also called UAVs, for unmanned aerial vehicles, are much more than high-tech go-fers. They’re some of the most exciting things to come along since talking smartphones, with applications across all kind of industries, which is why more and more companies are getting into the game.

Essentially highly maneuverable aerial photography platforms, the professional versions of these devices are just beginning to be discovered by people who install, maintain and irrigate landscapes for a living.

Advertising that really soars

One of the most obvious uses for drone technology is to enhance advertising. Lebo Newman, owner of Signature Landscapes in Reno, Nevada, recently bought one, and has been using it to shoot videos and still shots of completed jobs. He then puts the visuals up on his website, and uses them in his print and TV ads.

“The videos are really neat, kind of like those real estate walk-throughs you see on TV,” said Newman. “We’ve also done other kinds of shoots.

One day, we gathered all the guys for a safety meeting, had them do the whole ‘Hi, Mom’ thing for the camera. We posted it to our website and later, used that footage as part of a TV ad.”

Russ Jundt, founder, COO and owner of Conserva Irrigation in Ham Lake, Minnesota, recently used a drone to help Toro make a video about its Evolution controller and SMRT Logic phone app. Once it’s edited and put together, the video will feature a split screen; the left side of the screen will show someone pressing the buttons on the phone app. The right side will feature drone footage of how the system reacts, what zones turn on and where.

Why a drone-mounted camera, instead of a regular one? Jundt says the overhead view was able to show the layout of the entire quarter-acre lot, and different parts of the irrigation system working as the buttons on the app are depressed.

“It’ll be just like in real life,” he said. “Except, instead of pressing a button inside the garage and then running out to see what happened, a contractor or client can go online and see the actual results.”

One of Jundt’s franchisees, Patrick McCusker, owns and operates Conserva Irrigation of Southeast Pennsylvania in Garnet Valley.

BUSINESS He uses his drones “to shoot videos that help me stand out among my competitors.”

He says that the videos are a great way to get in front of both current and future clients, to show what he does and how he does it, so that they can visualize what the potential might be for their own properties. In addition, he feels that the impact registers much more quickly on people than articles, blog posts or still pictures do.

McCusker also does landscape work through his other operation, Garnet Valley Farms, LLC. “Clients often don’t know that they’re interested in a particular service, such as a tree installation, until they see a video of it being done,” he said.

“Then, they’re blown away. It’s much better than taking a picture of a project, because you can shoot it from a bunch of different angles.”

Recently, he used his drone to fly across a property where he was installing an irrigation system. “I was thinking, ‘How do you take an effective picture of an irrigation system?

One that gives someone a concept of everything that goes into it?’ I decided to film the whole process, including all the trenching, and the pipes being laid down into the trenches. Now a potential client can look at that video and say, ‘Oh, that’s what’ll happen when it’s installed on my property—I understand now just what I’ll be paying for.’” He has no regrets about spending $1,000 on a drone, because he sees more than $1,000 of value resulting from it. “When I see the page views on my website of my jobs going from 200 to 2,000, I know that people outside of my typical client base are looking at them. It’s put me in front of new people, and that’s a win-win. To me, it’s powerful advertising.”

The ultimate multi-taskers

Matt Hayes is mapping product supervisor at RDO Integrated Controls in Billings, Montana.

Before coming to RDO, Hayes owned an aerial survey imaging company, working with both manned aircraft and UAVs in the “very highend mountain resort town” of Sun Valley, Idaho.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

37

BUSINESS There, he saw firsthand how valuable a tool a drone can be for a landscape contractor.

“That community has lots of large secondhome properties, managed by some of the big landscape maintenance companies. A lot of these outfits had already invested in geographic information system (GIS) mapping programs and they became our best customers.”

These companies used his drones to do pre-bid analyses on properties for which they were trying to get maintenance contracts. The UAV gave them much faster and more accurate tree counts and measures of square footages than they could have gotten from "walking the site." They were easily able to assess what services would be needed, and how many personnel would have to be assigned. This made them much less likely to submit bids that would be too low for all the work involved.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Eric Arneson, ASLA, a landscape designer at Antonia Bava Landscape Architects in San Francisco, California, finds UAVs very exciting.

“They give you real-time views of sites from new perspectives,” he said.

38

“Photography is the most obvious use for a drone, of course,” he said. “But we also use it for analysis, and before-and-after renderings. It’s very helpful that the photos you get are very high quality and high resolution. That allows us to overlay 3-D models, and create renderings with real context. It creates a very nice effect.”

It draws a really accurate topographical map that we can then use to design a landscape.”

“With the mobile app open, we can easily locate trees, so that we can measure their diameters at breast height. We plug in the data, and when we get back to the office, it’s there in the Cloud.

Much better than the way we used to map trees, by holding up large sheets of paper and marking everything by hand.”

Todd Bunnell, Ph.D., is director of agronomy for BrightView’s (the new name for the merged ValleyCrest and Brickman companies) golf course maintenance division. A drone purchase is on the "pending" list.

“As a multi-course maintenance operator, there are definitely some advantages that we see for using drone technology,” said Bunnell. “Not only for identification of potential turf problems, but also for being able to help us evaluate properties without having to hop on an airplane.”

Turf can be stressed by getting too little or too much water, by weed or pest infestation, disease, or a combination of these factors. The trick is to identify stressed plant material before any visible indicators appear. This can be done with a technique that the ag world has been using for some time, deploying drones equipped with near-infrared cameras.

Plant material reflects different wavelengths of light, depending on how much chlorophyll is present in it. The technical term for this is Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, or NDVI.

Arneson says drones and mapping software have changed the way his company does site surveys. They used to have to hire an engineer or professional land surveyor to create base maps.

This isn’t cheap; for a large property it can cost as much as $10,000.

Stressed plants, including blades of turfgrass, have lower levels of chlorophyll, resulting in lower NDVI readings. Near-infrared cameras are sensitive enough to pick up these signs of struggle early in the process, before our eyes can detect it.

Now, especially for residential sites, the firm’s designers can usually create their own surveys, saving them—and their clients—a lot of money.

That’s important, because timing is crucial. Golf course or large-campus landscape maintenance supervisors can’t wait until green areas turn brown before doing something. “In turfgrass situations, if something is starting to go wrong, things can go downhill very rapidly,” said Bunnell.

To process the data, the company uses a program called DroneDeploy. “It allows you to create a site survey of any property,” said Arneson."

BUSINESS “But if we can identify stress in grass twelve to 24 hours before humans normally see it, then we can be more proactive, instead of reactive.

If it’s not getting enough water, we can apply some type of product, such as a wetting agent, that helps the soil absorb water more readily.

Whatever the issue is, we can address it quickly, before the problem progresses.”

Getting started

You could see how this would save money and materials. Instead of spraying an entire lawn with a chemical, a maintenance crew could use a more ‘prescription-based’ approach, applying it only where needed.

Then, you’ll need a pilot. There are companies that will let you rent both a drone and someone to fly it, as well as places that can teach you or your employees how to be pilots. It doesn’t take very long to learn, and it’s a blast. After all, people fly these as a hobby. If pictures are mainly what you need, you’re set.

Of course, it’s not really "free." First you have buy, or rent, a drone. Happily, prices have been doing a steady, steep descent over the last couple of years. You can pick up a good professional drone, with camera attached, for around $1,000 to $2,000. You probably already own a smartphone; that’s your control device.

Bunnell thinks that near-infrared cameras might eventually be used to identify various species of weeds based on the different wavelengths they reflect, so that the right herbicides, in just the right amounts, can be applied. Eventually, these cameras might even detect exactly where grubs are present in a lawn, so an insecticide can be targeted just to those spots.

But as we said, drones are capable of so much more.

You can get a complicated survey and analysis of a site’s topography—the sort of thing Hayes was talking about.

For that, you’ll need a GIS mapping program to interpret the data. Fortunately, a lot of companies that rent drones and pilots also have that software, and can crunch the numbers for you.

“The key to success in using drones will be in having them collect data, being able to upload that information and get it analyzed, and then, put back into the hands of the decision maker in a timely manner.”

Nothing to be afraid of

McCusker has been a landscape contractor for ten years, but at 31, he’s one of the younger crowd, who are less intimidated by technology.

He doesn’t think that age should be a barrier, however, or an excuse. He says that he knows

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Arneson’s firm used to hire aerial photographers to document their work. “I was talking to the principal of our company the other day, and she’d just been solicited by one of these guys,” said Arneson. “One photo was going to cost $3,000.

She said, ‘No, thanks,’ because now we can shoot as many as we want, in as many angles as we want—including video, for free.”

One tip: although drone piloting isn’t hard to learn, you still might want to practice with a cheaper model, say, a $100 toy version. Newman bought one just for training purposes. Why? McCusker says the first time he flew his UAV—a $1,200 model—he crashed it into a tree.

39

BUSINESS Reprinted with permission from Irrigation & Green Industry magazine.

older contractors who are open to trying new things, as well as some younger guys who are closed-minded.

It takes his guys quite a while to check out those long ditches. If they find nothing, that time was wasted. He figures, why not fly the drone over those areas instead, and save tremendous amounts of time, fuel, and labor?

“You have to keep educating yourself about new technology, or you’re not furthering your business. Some of this stuff is really going to change the way we do things,” said McCusker.

Newman is already envisioning those changes.

He’s in a good spot for keeping on top of advancing drone technology. Nevada has encouraged UAV and other high-tech developers to locate around the Reno area. “They’re building drones and creating the apps that run them right here, in our backyard, so we’re hoping to tap into that.”

He’s planning to use his drone to check out irrigation systems, and to give him a "heads up" on stressed-out turf areas.

He sees a lot of potential for assessing very large areas, saving himself and his employees from "hikable" situations.

This new technology is potentially gamechanging. As McCusker said, “The exciting part is, you just don’t know how some of this stuff is going to affect things.” A drone may look like something out of Area 51, but it may be that one day, it’ll be as commonplace a landscape tool as a lawn mower. Will you be on the cutting edge when it is?

“A good use for a drone would be in checking the drainage ditches that you find all over our hills and mountainsides, behind subdivisions. They have to be cleaned and cleared out periodically, so they don’t overflow and flood someone down below.”

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BUSINESS

The year of the battery

Battery-powered outdoor equipment When Greg Taylor, owner of GTM Services in Largo, Florida, went to the Green Industry Expo (GIE) in 2014, he noticed that there were a few more companies selling batterypowered outdoor equipment. He saw Greenworks Commercial brought their one display where battery-operated outdoor equipment to contractors could try UAC's October 2016 dinner meeting so out battery-powered members could try them out. string trimmers on cardboard, and decided to give the demo a shot.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“I went in thinking that I would try it, really lay into the thing, and it would stall,” said Taylor, “but it didn’t.” The string trimmer had more power than Taylor expected, but he still wasn’t sure. However, later that year, Taylor’s hedge trimmer broke down, and he remembered what he’d seen at the GIE show.

42

He also recalled that, “It came with a 90-day guarantee, so I thought to myself, ‘Hey, if it works, great. If it doesn’t, I can just take it back.’”

Taylor found that the hedge trimmer was perfect. It had enough power, and he ran out of energy before the battery did.

In addition, he didn’t have to worry about buying gas for it, perform maintenance on it, or worry about the carburetor clogging when he didn’t use it that often.

Taylor’s story is being repeated across the country. While outdoor power equipment using lithium-ion batteries was once mostly consumeroriented, tool lines geared toward landscape contractors are starting to gain traction. The

equipment has been around for a few years, but now it’s starting to enter the mainstream at the professional level.

Gaining power

In Towson, Maryland, Tyler Delin, a product manager for DeWalt’s Outdoor Power Equipment division, said he’s seen firsthand how this trend has grown. “Battery power has been relevant for the past five or six years, but mostly where contractors are operating in cities with noise-limiting ordinances, or where they have clients who value low emissions,” he said. “In the past couple of years, we’re actually seeing contractors outside of those niches getting off the fence and into battery-powered equipment.”

So what’s changed? To understand that, we first have to understand what tools the green industry uses, what we need them to do, and what qualities we look for when considering a purchase. Just to clarify, for our purposes here, we’ll only be talking about handheld outdoor power equipment. While mowers, mini-skidsteers, stand-on aerators and the like all qualify as outdoor power equipment, they are a different segment. This is about the powered hand tools that we use on a daily or weekly basis.

The handheld tools we might carry on our trucks include string trimmers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, edgers, brush cutters, pole hedge trimmers and chainsaws. Whether they’re moving air or cutting through things, these tools need a lot of power. Traditionally, that power has been provided by small, 2- or 4-stroke gas engines, and make no mistake, gas power still makes up most of the market for contractors right now.

Gas provides a lot of power and, for the heaviest pieces of equipment, like backpack blowers, batteries still can’t quite compete. The 2-stroke engines are simple, lighter than other engines, and have fewer parts to break. The downside is that the user has to mix oil and gas together. The

BUSINESS 4-stroke engines produce fewer emissions, don’t require fuel mixing, and are more fuel-efficient, but they are also heavier and more complex.

feel a difference’; but I guarantee you, if they try using it over the course of a 10- or 12-hour day, they’re going feel a difference.”

Marv Mathwig, power tools product manager for STIHL, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, says that his company has taken a hybrid approach. “In September, we launched a new line of equipment, with 4- stroke engines that don’t have oil pumps or reservoirs,” he said.

You mix fuel and oil for it, just as you would with a 2-stroke, but it burns cleaner than a 2-stroke, even without a heavy, hot, catalytic muffler.

You may think that fatigue isn’t worth worrying about, as feeling tired at the end of the day can almost be nice; it carries with it a sense of accomplishment.

But here’s something you may not have considered: ergonomics can affect turnover.

Ergonomically speaking

When looking at engines, it’s worth considering the power-to-weight ratio, if you’re expecting to use that tool on a daily basis. Buying a piece of equipment without any anti-vibration mechanisms, or one that is particularly heavy, can be a recipe for disaster. Those are both examples of poor ergonomics, and the science of ergonomics doesn’t exist just to make your employees happy, but to keep them safe.

Take a moment to think about how your crews look at the start of the day, and compare it to how they look by the end of the day. If your employees go out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but come back to the yard slumping with fatigue, they’re at risk and your business is, too. Using poorly-designed power equipment may be the cause.

Consider a young man, fresh out of high school, looking for his first job. He could find work at a call center, or doing data entry, but he knows how boring that would be. He wants to be outside, in the fresh air, being active.

So he finds work with a landscape company, but he isn’t prepared for just how heavy the workload is. He comes home exhausted every day, too tired to do anything more than shower, eat dinner in front of the TV, and go to bed. In a month, he’ll have some more muscle, and things will get easier, but he won’t last that long. By Wednesday, a nice comfy seat in an air-conditioned room starts sounding pretty good to him, so he calls a temp agency. On Monday, he’s a no-show.

In this economy, green-industry companies are scrambling to meet their labor needs. The more attractive you can make the job, the better.

Three things affect your level of fatigue when you use a power tool: noise, vibration and weight. Obviously, a heavy tool is harder to carry and use than a lighter one, but vibration and noise can be just as tough on you in the long run.

Tired employees are more likely to be sloppy or cut corners. A buildup of physical fatigue can also affect mental faculties; tired people make more mistakes.

Power tool manufacturers are trying to reduce this factor. “We reduced the weight at the end of our gearbox by two ounces on one of our units,” said Mathwig. “People pick it up and say, ‘I don’t

The prospect of working around a lot of noise and exhaust fumes may not be an interest-killer in the same way that radioactive waste or coal dust is, but it isn’t exactly enticing, either.

Those are long-term health risks, but the shortterm safety issues are also worth considering.

It seems obvious, but every string trimmer, chainsaw or edger comes with guidelines about how to operate it safely, and everyone who touches that tool should know those guidelines.

Having a safety program in place, and requiring employees to wear their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) whenever they’re in the field, is at least as important as what you buy. All the safety features in the world won’t protect your employees if they misuse the tools.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Safety first

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BUSINESS Reprinted with permission from Irrigation & Green Industry magazine.

Regular maintenance is an ancillary but important part of safe operation as well. “You’ve got to make sure that there are no cracks in trimmer heads or blades,” said Christian Johnssen, product manager for handheld and battery-powered products at Husqvarna USA in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Make sure that there’s nothing which could break and hurt someone in any way.”

“When we think about maintaining our handheld power equipment, we’re mostly thinking about cleaning air and fuel filters, or replacing spark plugs,” said Johnssen.

One of the draws of battery-powered equipment is that contractors can shed those maintenance burdens. Batteries just need to be plugged in every night.

The lithium-ion formulas used now are a lot hardier than the old, nickel-cadmium batteries of yesteryear.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

That brings up another important concept: runtime versus work time. If you’re looking at a battery-tool combination with a 45-minute runtime, you may think that you’ll have to buy six or eight of those batteries to keep it up and running, but that’s not the case. It’s worth checking, to be sure, but generally, runtime refers to how long a battery will last at full trigger.

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“You can get three hours of work time out of 50 minutes of runtime,” said Delin. “Because you’re not always fully on the trigger; you’re also walking from one location to another.”

During those three hours, a second battery can be hooked up to a trickle charger on the truck.

As soon as the first one runs out of power, you swap them. Johnssen recommends having two batteries per tool for that reason, but you may be able to get away with fewer.

Manufacturers are also getting better about catering to green-industry charging needs. We spend whole shifts without any available outlets, so they offer multi-battery charging stations that can hook up to a truck battery through an inverter. The inverter has a safety mechanism to keep the truck’s battery from being drained dry.

One company is coming out with a charger that’s designed to attach to a zero-turn mower and draw power from it.

There are some other striking advantages to having a piece of equipment with no engine. The only noise and vibration in the tool comes from the action of the motor.

Imagine, no more engine maintenance, no more burning your arm on a hot machine—and you don’t have to yank a pull cord every time you start a machine. If a crew uses four or five tools on each property, and handles 20 properties per day, you can be talking upwards of a hundred pulls per day, which can cause repetitive strain injuries over time. In addition, you won’t get the engine blowups from bad 2-stroke mixing, or failures to start from clogged fuel lines.

The cost of refilling is not to be sneezed at, either. Taylor uses half the fuel he used to, now that he’s switched to battery power on his string trimmers, his hedge trimmer, chainsaw and handheld blower. “I still use gas for my backpack blower, and for my edger,” he said. “Being in Florida, I have to edge all the beds every three weeks or so, and it uses up a lot of fuel.”

Battery-powered equipment costs more up-front than gas, but electricity is generally cheaper than gasoline. You may find that it’s actually cheaper in the long run, though it depends on what you buy and what region of the country you’re in.

Some regions have much higher fuel costs than others.

Keep in mind, handheld outdoor power equipment is designed to keep your costs manageable. Raking leaves would take too many people to do commercially, so we use backpack blowers. One person with a hedge trimmer can do the work of five people with clippers.

Just think of how many people it would take to replace one employee with a string trimmer.

Power equipment empowers your employees, so spend some time, do a little homework, and decide if your equipment needs an upgrade. You might be glad you did.

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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INDUSTRY

A servant's heart

McCorkle wins Horticultural Industries Leadership Award

by Kelli Rodda

up a flatbed truck full of plants to sell on the weekends. Some 10 years later, he rented a small lot in Augusta and started a retail garden center.

In 1942, he moved back home — about 25 miles outside of Augusta — and started McCorkle Nurseries. Skeetter’s father, Don, joined the family business in the 1950s, followed by Don’s brother, Jack. Skeetter recalls when the nursery began experimenting with containers, and as a child he’d visit the canneries with his grandfather to collect peach cans to use for planting.

“I remember punching holes in cans and coating them with creosote to make the cans last and keep them from rusting,” Skeetter says.

Photo by Steve Bracci

"We set expectations then conduct inspections to make sure those expectations are being met — that’s a big part of planning, and I’m a firm believer in written plans. IIt’s easier to plan but harder to make sure you stay on track.” ~Skeetter McCorkle

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Lessons of humility and honesty have been passed down through the generations

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of those leading McCorkle Nurseries in Dearing, Ga. As the CEO of a family nursery with a 75-year history, Skeetter McCorkle continues the business traditions and life lessons he first learned from his paternal grandfather, C.S. McCorkle. Known as “Papa” to his grandchildren, he was Skeetter’s first mentor.

“There was a lot of wisdom to glean from at an early age,” he says.

C.S. McCorkle was a farmer, and the Great Depression drove him to the nearby city of Augusta, Ga., to find work to sustain his family.

There he connected with Berckmans Nursery (also known as Fruitland), which is purported as one of the first large-scale nurseries in the Southeast. C.S. learned the trade from the Berckmans, and worked in the field, then set

From an early age, Skeetter felt a connection to the nursery industry and the family business.

His Papa and his father both shared with him the practical lessons of hard work, as well as the importance of planning and follow-through.

They were also strong in their faith, a foundation on which Skeetter continues to base his life and work goals and objectives.

“Christian values were very evident in the family — Papa and my dad both lived and modeled those values,” he says. “All those disciplines were a big part of life.”

Don encouraged Skeetter to study business, and never forced him into the family business.

“Horticulture, like agriculture, is very practical,” Skeetter says. “Most of the skills are practical and can be learned through experience, and we certainly learned those skills growing up.”

Skeetter started college at the age of 16 as part of dual enrollment program, and he received his associate degree the summer after he graduated high school. He went on to get a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

“I certainly had opportunities to do other things in a different career, but I had a calling to join the family business. That calling was pretty much there from the early days,” he says.

INDUSTRY Skeetter, his sister Beverly, and Chris, his first cousin — the third generation of McCorkles — started in the business in the late ’70s through the ’80s.

A family atmosphere

The nursery’s senior management consists of Skeetter, cousin Chris (who is the nursery’s vice president and general manager), CFO Bill Janci, and sales associate Tony Rogers. The four start each day with a quick meeting, covering key stats in the business, what needs to be accomplished and what help each division needs. Weekly, the senior management meets with Chad Rybolt in sales and Tim Rogers, general manager of MNI Direct, a division that supplies trees and plants for commercial and residential landscape projects in Georgia and the Carolinas.

Skeetter says he gets a lot of inspiration and advice from this core group, as well as a much “broader cadre of family-like employees that act as owners.”

“We set expectations then conduct inspections to make sure those expectations are being met — that’s a big part of planning, and I’m a firm believer in written plans,” he says. “It’s easier to plan but harder to make sure you stay on track.”

The nursery’s planning and review requirements have helped the business succeed during the good times and created a hedge of protection during the tough times.

“We’ve been evolutionary. We follow the market and opportunities, which sometimes means making hard choices to follow those opportunities and expand,” he says. “The expression, ‘change or die’ comes to mind. I don’t change just for the sake of change. We make prudent changes and are sensitive to whatever the environment brings. My dad taught me that a rut is a grave with both ends kicked out of it and not to get sedentary or set in our ways.”

Originally published by Nursery Management magazine. Reprinted with permission. This article has been edited to fit in this space. View the entire article: magazine.nurserymag.com/article/july-2017/a-servants-heart.aspx

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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INDUSTRY

SAF receognizes UGA faculty member Paul Thomas to receive 2017 Alex Laurie Award A renowned researcher, prolific speaker and mentor to college students is the recipient of the Society of American Florists’ (SAF) 2017 Alex Laurie Award.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Paul Thomas, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Georgia’s horticulture department, is the recipient of the Society of American Florists’ (SAF) 2017 Alex Laurie Award.

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The association will present the honor to Paul A. Thomas, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Georgia’s horticulture department, on September 9 during SAF Palm Beach 2017, SAF’s 133rd Annual Convention at The Breakers in Florida.

Established in 1948, SAF’s Alex Laurie Award is named for the eminent professor at The Ohio State University.

Over the course of his 60-year career, Laurie laid the groundwork for research that revolutionized the floriculture industry and left a lineage of students, teachers and researchers continuing to provide the information necessary to ensure the industry’s future.

Thomas earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in botany from Southern Illinois University and his doctorate in plant physiology, with a specialization in plant carbohydrate transport in maize, from the Pennsylvania State University. His current research involves water conservation, production input reduction, sustainable greenhouse practices and implementation of wireless, sensor-controlled irrigation systems in nurseries and greenhouses.

Prior to joining the UGA faculty, Thomas served as the education greenhouse director at the Chicago Botanic Garden, the greenhouse manager at Southern Illinois University and as a scientist at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s Northern Regional Research Center in Peoria, Illinois before joining the faculty at UGA. At UGA, Thomas teaches greenhouse management, horticultural business practices and interiorscaping classes. A key component of his program is facilitating experiential learning through industry internships. Thomas serves as the State Extension Specialist in floriculture. In this position, he plans and implements regional and state programs involving greenhouses and the florist industry.

Thomas has published more than 350 peerreviewed scientific and outreach articles and has received 41 academic awards. He has given more than 600 presentations to industry groups and has extensive diagnostic experience.

He serves as a grant reviewer on the American Floral Endowment’s education committee and chairs the American Society for Horticultural Science’s endowment committee. Thomas has also been very active in the Vic and Margaret Ball Internship program managed by the American Floral Endowment.

Notably, he served a six-year term as a committee member of the D.C. Kiplinger Chair in Floriculture’s oversight committee, and served as a grant panel manager for the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Thomas is dedicated to nurturing aspiring horticulturists. He has over 20 years of service to the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ chapter of Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related

INDUSTRY Sciences, as well as the college’s Young Scholars Program (a STEM High school co-mentoring program) and serves as faculty advisor to the Tau Chapter of the Pi Alpha Xi national horticulture honor society.

He has also served as a judge for the Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a coalition of Georgia colleges created to recruit underrepresented demographics to studies in science, technology, engineering and math; the Georgia Junior Science and Humanities Symposium; and the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair.

For information about the Alex Laurie Award, visit safnow.org/awards.

Paul A. Thomas, Ph.D., is dedicated to nurturing aspiring horticulturists.

At UGA. Thomas teaches greenhouse management, horticultural business practices and interiorscaping classes. A key component of his program is facilitating experiential learning through industry internships.

SNA to collocate with MANTS

Conference scheduled for January 8 - 9, 2018 in Baltimore The Southern Nursery Association (SNA)

Transforming from a traditional trade show format, The SNA Conference will have a clear focus on connecting the industry to identify today’s business challenges and opportunities, and develop new insights and solutions. The conference will offer industry professionals a dynamic and interactive experience through The 16th Southern Plant Conference, The 62nd Annual SNA Research Conference, keynote sessions and participant-driven roundtable discussions. In addition, SNA will be conducting annual business as well with 119th Annual SNA Business Meeting.

The Southern Plant Conference will unveil some of the hottest new plants coming to market, the best practices for growing, and offer a unique opportunity to learn from leading industry plant experts. The SNA Research Conference will offer cutting-edge content of the latest horticultural research. These top researchers, from across the country, will participate throughout the event.

For more information, contact the Southern Nursery Association, Inc., PO Box 801454, Acworth, GA 30101, 678.809.9992, mail@sna. org, or visit the SNA website at www.sna.org.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

has announced plans to collocate The SNA Conference with the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS) in 2018. Under this new arrangement, both events will take place at the Baltimore Convention Center with The SNA Conference preceding MANTS on Monday and Tuesday, January 8-9, 2018. MANTS will take place on Wednesday, January 10 – Friday, January 12.

“There is crossover appeal for participants of both events and this collocation will bring value and potential new business opportunities for both audiences,” said Karen Summers, SNA Executive Vice President. “And, since SNA will no longer have a trade show, collocating with MANTS offers our participants the convenience of attending MANTS and also allows researchers and students participating in the SNA Research Conference to experience our industry’s largest trade show.,” she added.

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INDUSTRY

Top 100 landscape companies Lawn & Landscape's annual survey The Lawn & Landscape Top 100 is based on

2016 revenue from landscape profit centers. Most information is reported by each company listed, and supplemental data are sourced from public records and reporting by L&L staff.

Reliable Property Services (listed at 48 last year) and T.R. Gear.

UAC member Baytree Landscape 4 Contractors reported 60 percent growth, the largest jump on the list. (see page 52).

A * indicates revenue estimated based on Angler Environmental was acquired by 4 4 data from the 2016 Top 100 list.

Resource Environmental Solutions in September 2016. RES is part of KKR, the Companies on this list earned a combined 4 same private equity company that owns revenue of $9,161,843,124 in 2016, which is an increase of $594,598,970 or 6.9 percent, over 2015. Companies on the list also reported total employment of 95,125. Based on this data, the average growth expected in 2017 is 9.9 percent.

This year’s list includes companies from 4 26 states and four firms in Canada. The

states with the most Top 100 companies are California (13), Illinois (10) and Florida (8).

Companies that reported revenue in 4 Canadian dollars have been converted

4 UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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to U.S. dollars using the 2016 average conversion rate of 0.76.

The youngest company on the list is Five Seasons Property Management/Asplundh, founded in 2015 with the acquisition of

BrightView.

BrightView acquired the maintenance 4 division of Marina Landscapes in early

2016. Its revenue does not include U.S. Lawns revenue, but does include franchise payments.

Yellowstone Landscape acquired Ecoscape 4 Solutions in December 2016.

Merit Service Solutions was acquired by 4 Eureka Capital in December 2016.

TruGreen’s revenue includes Scotts 4 LawnService, which it acquired in April 2016.

Davey does not separate its landscape 4 management revenue from its overall revenue.

INDUSTRY Abbreviations %MT Maintenance %CLC/F Chemical Lawn Care/ Fertilization %LD/B/I Landscape Design/ Build/Install %IL Interior Landscaping

%CR Commercial Revenue %RR Residential Revenue N/A No Answer/Unknown

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Reprinted with permission from Lawn & Landscape’s May 2017 issue. For more, visit lawnandlandscape.com.

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INDUSTRY

In like a lion

UAC member new to Lawn & Landscape's Top 100

by Katie Tuttle The population in Charleston, South Carolina, increases by roughly 45 residents a day, according to U.S. Census information.

Because of this, Baytree Landscape Contractors knew it Photos courtesy of Baytree Landscape Contractors had to change the way Along with strong market growth, adding it offers services.“It’s a hardscape division helped launch Baytree really a very hot Landscape Contractors to 60 percent growth market for housing, in 2016. land development, multi-family houses,” says Matt Maurer, co-owner of the company, which does 100 percent commercial projects. As more people move into the city, more shopping malls, banks, schools and other commercial facilities are built.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

During the population boom in the mid-2000s, Maurer says people were buying up land and expanding the footprint of the city, but the most recent boom is different.

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“It’s up and not out,” he says. “This emphasis is more on redevelopment. The emphasis is more on infill, on tearing down old projects and putting up a nice, mixed-use building.”

He says previous apartment complexes would be 275 units on 20 acres, which created a lot of landscaping to maintain. Now, complexes that house 275 units are being built on 3 acres, cutting down on that landscaping.

“The size of landscaping projects was going down and down and down, just like New York City,” Maurer says. “There’s not a lot of green space in New York City. So, we had to find where we would still be able to be a company that could provide both services (maintenance and hardscaping) without specializing in one or the other.”

Combining assets

Baytree was founded in the spring of 2014 as a landscape maintenance and construction company based in both Charleston and Atlanta.

Each of the company’s four founding partners, Phil Walters, Todd Hunt, Drew Watkins and Matt Maurer, had been in the landscaping industry for more than 20 years and had worked together in the past.

“We knew each other’s strengths. We knew what each other could bring to the table and we felt like it was a successful mix to start Baytree,” Maurer says. “Knowing your partners and knowing what they’re capable of doing is very helpful. We all have our responsibility and we all know what that responsibility is, and when there’s four of us, it’s a little easier to manage than one person trying to do it all.”

The four partners were able to combine the resources and industry contacts they had to start the company in two key markets. Based in the Charleston location, Maurer is responsible for everything in the North and South Carolina markets.

Walters is responsible for landscape construction (which includes irrigation, hardscape and landscape) out of Atlanta. Hunt is the company’s chief financial officer, holding down the fort financially, and Watkins – based in Atlanta – runs the maintenance division for both locations.

As it looks at expanding more, Baytree is keeping its eye on emerging markets.

“We are definitely looking to grow within the Southeast into some additional markets,” Maurer says. “We are a client-driven organization. Our clients do work through the southeast and we follow them. It’s how we build our loyalty with our clients.”

Add-ons

“We’ve lost many jobs because we were unable to provide hardscape services. We knew each

INDUSTRY other’s strengths. We knew what each other could bring to the table and we felt like it was a successful mix to start Baytree,” Maurer says.

Often, commercial properties in the company’s market will hire their hardscaping company to continue doing landscape maintenance when the job is done, leaving Baytree with fewer opportunities at contracts.

Additionally, the contracts are bigger.

“Typically, a hardscape contract is a lot larger than a landscape contract because of the cost of materials, the labor’s a lot more skilled,” he says.

The appeal would be enough for any company to consider expanding its offerings.

“The landscaping on one of those jobs, a multimillion-dollar high-rise, could be $50,000,” Maurer says. “Where now our scope of work could be a million and a half dollars because we’re doing the hardscaping around it as well.”

To make the shift to hardscaping, Baytree starting looking into the possibility of offering

the service in house. Realizing they had the right personnel in place – something Maurer says was No. 1 – the company started bidding on jobs.

“We did see where it started to turn the tables,” Maurer says. “‘This guy can do landscape and hardscape, we’re going with him.’ That was a big driver.”

Reprinted with permission from Lawn & Landscape’s May 2017 issue. For more, visit lawnandlandscape.com.

In 2016, the company saw a revenue increase of 60 percent, which Maurer also credits to the company’s age.

“We were able to open up some doors that we knew we could get in and work with these folks,” he says. “But in the early stages of Baytree, our capacity wasn’t there.”

While adding hardscaping definitely played a role in the revenue increase, Maurer says the growing market helped.

“The cities we work in, the markets increased tremendously over the last three years,” he says.

“We had a very strong market growth.”

20 years of Top 100 Lawn & Landscape analyzed two decades of data to give you even more insight into the industry's biggest firms

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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URBAN AG

Invasive species

More cargo containers = more concern

by Sharon Dowdy, Clint Thompson Over the next 10 years, the number

of cargo containers operating out of the Port of Savannah, Georgia, is expected to double. While additional cargo means increased revenue for the state, Chuck Bargeron, associate director An Asian longhorned beetle chews through of the University of wood.

Georgia Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, is concerned it could also lead to the establishment of more invasive species.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The center has identified more than 2,900 different species of wildlife, plants and insects that are present in, but not native to, North America. Many of those species come from Asia, where the ships that deliver cargo to the Port of Savannah originate.

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“Doubling the number of ships that operate through this port is great for the health of the state’s economy, but in doing so, we can expect more invasive species to arrive as well. It’s inevitable,” Bargeron said.

According to the Georgia Ports Authority website, the ports of Savannah and Brunswick had a total tonnage of 30,832,880 in 2016, a growth of 16 percent over the previous five years.

The wood pallets on which the cargo is transported play host to most incoming invasive species. If the pallets are not properly heat-treated, then wood-boring pests, like the Asian longhorned beetle and the oak splendour beetle, could find a home in the pallet and relocate to North America in the process.

Invasive pests can better be contained if they are quickly identified before they spread, Bargeron said. The center has developed several apps for reporting invasive species.

The Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System for Integrated Pest Management, called “EDDMapS IPM,” and regional reporting apps, like IveGot1, allow anyone to submit invasive species observations from the field. These reports are uploaded to a database and automatically emailed to local and state experts for review. The app captures the user’s precise location and allows the user to attach a picture of the species being reported.

Michael Toews, a UGA Cooperative Extension entomologist and center co-director, oversaw the development of EDDMapS IPM. The app, which is compatible with Apple and Google Android devices, allows scientists and farmers to track pests and make informed management decisions based on real-time conditions.

“These smartphone apps are critical tools for responding to invasive species in Georgia and throughout the country. Nearly everyone has access to a smartphone that can be utilized to upload a picture and information that enables specialists to quickly respond to this threat,” Toews said.

Toews was instrumental in researching the kudzu bug and assisting Georgia’s soybean farmers after the bug was identified in the U.S. in 2009.

“Shortly after its arrival, Georgia’s soybean crop became highly susceptible to the invasive kudzu bug. While the bug’s impact has diminished recently, it is definitely an example of how an invasive species can negatively impact Georgia’s crop production,” Toews said.

URBAN AG Bargeron attributes the impact of invasive species to the way they respond to their new surroundings.

“The way they behave here is different than the way they behave in their native environments.

For example, think about Burmese pythons. It is estimated that there are more Burmese pythons in south Florida than in their native range in southern Asia. Burmese pythons are at the top of the food chain in the Everglades,” Bargeron said.

“They were able to take over and really succeed.

That’s something no one considered when they were letting people bring pythons in (to the U.S.) as pets.”

UGA hosted the North American Invasive Species Forum on May 9-11 in Savannah at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Garden at the Historic Bamboo Farm. The conference provided a forum for sharing knowledge about invasive species management across North America.

Representatives from 26 states, Canada, Mexico and India attended the event.

Bargeron talked about the North American Invasive Species Network and management of invasive species within North America through collaboration and cooperation.

“Invasive species are nothing new, but what’s being done to manage them is always evolving.

Forums like this allow us to discuss what management ideas are working in one location and how they might work in another,” he said.

The center’s list of invasive species can be found at www.invasive.org.

About the authors Sharon Dowdy is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Clint Thompson is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences based in Tifton.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

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URBAN AG

The follow-up

Long-term weed control

by Katie Tuttle Creating the perfect weed control program is a strategy,

says Dean Mosdell, technical manager for Syngenta.

A pre-emergent herbicide is important in preventing the weeds, but it’s equally important to have a postemergent plan to control the ones that pop up.

“Just simply seeing a weed grow in a lawn and picking a postemergent product is probably short term,” he says. “But for a long-term strategy, think about what the turf is, what weeds are present and how you can control them.”

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

A pre-emergent herbicide is important in preventing the weeds, but it’s equally important to have a post-emergent plan to control the ones that pop up.

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“Post-emergents represent a curative approach instead of a preventative approach. You can have a sound, preventative program and still require some curative products or postemergent products.” ~ George Furrer Director of Specialty Business SipcamAdvan Furrer says some companies choose to forgo the preventative approach to weed control and instead focus on curative, but even companies that have a strong preventative program will still need to come back later in the season and touch up.

Jason Fausey, director of technical services, turf and ornamentals with Nufarm, says a sound weed program needs both pre- and post-control to be effective.

“We can’t control the weather, so it becomes difficult to expect perfect weed control,” he says. “(Pre-emergents are) a perfect foundation, but you always expect to see breakthrough and that’s where our post-emergent aspects come from.”

1. Making a choice

Picking the right post-emergent requires a knowledge of what you want to treat and how you want to apply it.

First, you need to decide liquid versus granular. Jim Goodrich, a product manager with PBI-Gordon, says granular products need to be applied when the weed is wet.

“On a granular product, you need it to stick to the weed,” he says. “To make sure that your granular broadleaf product works, it really needs to be applied after the irrigation has applied in the morning, or a heavy dew situation.”

For liquid products, he says you have to look at the temperature restrictions on the product, because you can’t apply a liquid post-emergent if it’s too hot or too cold.

In both situations, the weather can’t be windy.

“Most products have a wind restriction because you don’t want it to drift away from the target and hit flowers or ornamentals,” Goodrich says.

2.

The second decision to make is whether you want a selective or non-selective product.

“You’ve got your selective you can put down on everything but it won’t kill your grass, it’ll only kill the broadleaf weed,” says Jeremy Bigler, landscape channel manager with Lebanon. “Or

URBAN AG you’ve got the non-selective that will just kill everything. Whatever that stuff touches is going to die.”

Mudge says the struggle to treat these weeds will depend more on the chemical companies, than the applicator.

He says non-selectives are often used in areas with a grassy weed that can’t be taken out with a pre-emerergent. The only option is to kill out everything in the area of the weed and then reseed and start from the ground up.

“We need more products,” he says. “We need different active ingredients. We just don’t have that many tools in the toolbox for post-emergent herbicides. We’re relying on chemistry that’s really old, but we just haven’t had a lot of active new ingredients come into the post-emergent world.”

3.

No matter the decision, when you apply is most important.

“I would say timing is going to be the key piece to make sure that they’re as effective as they can be,” Bigler says.

Make sure the lawn where the application will occur hasn’t been mowed for a few days so there’s enough foliage growth for the product to stick to the leaves. It’s also important to make sure there will be no watering or rain for the next 24 hours.

Not picture perfect “Weed ID is really important. Making sure you understand what you’re controlling, so you can select the best product for the weed.” ~ Laurence Mudge Green Solutions Team Manager Bayer

Along with a good product, it’s important for your crews to be knowledgeable on what they’re treating. Mudge says there are numerous weeds that are tough to control, and even though there are good products on the market, they’re not perfect.

“It really comes down to expectations,” Mudge says. “Some companies understand these weeds are harder to control and they do a little better job.”

Ask any chemical company what LCOs wish their herbicide could do, and the answer is the same.

“There’s really a desire for products that control multiple weed species in a single jug,” Furrer says.

“As the manufacturer, we try to lean that way as well, and make it as easy and simple as possible,” Fausey says.

In the end, the effectiveness of the post-emergent you apply depends on how you apply it.

“The better coverage you can obtain, the more consistent the results will be.

People that try to cut back on the spray volume or have larger droplets just do not obtain great coverage with the application. Results are going to be variable, but the best way to get more consistent results is to focus on the application itself.” ~ Jason Fausey Director of Technical Services, Turf and Ornamentals Nufarm Reprinted with permission from the May 2017 issue of Lawn & Landscape. For more information, visit lawnandlandscape.com.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The best product isn’t quite black and white. It depends on your location in the country, the type of grass the weeds are in, and what the current climate is.

Not a cure-all

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Knowledge is power

To control weeds in turf, get to know them first

by Patrick McCullough, PhD Weed identification is critical before selecting appropriate control options in turfgrass.

There are several books recommended for turf managers, such as Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses from the University of Georgia, that can be used to determine the species of weeds in lawns and landscapes.

One of the best characteristics for identifying a weed species is the seedhead or flower.

Most grasses have a distinct seedhead with specific arrangements of the branches or seed.

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Many broadleaf weeds have showy flowers that vary in size, color, and emergence patterns.

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URBAN AG The flower or seedhead is often absent in turf that is mowed regularly, and therefore other characteristics should be considered for species identification. Grasses, for example, have ligules at the junction of the leaf sheath and blade that are generally distinctive for a specific species.

Other plant characteristics for consideration include leaf markings, leaf arrangement, and pubescence. These factors are described and often displayed in weed identification books.

Once the weed species has been confirmed, it’s important to determine the life cycle of the plant.

Understanding the emergence, growth, and reproductive cycles can help turf managers plan cultural and chemical management practices for control.

Annual weeds • • •

Summer annuals: germinate in spring/summer, reproduce in late summer/fall Winter annuals: germinate in fall, reproduce in spring Complete life cycle in one year and reproduce by seed only

Winter annual weeds

Hop clover

Annual bluegrass

Hairy bittercress

Joseph LaForest, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org

Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Henbit

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UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Summer annual weeds

Goosegrass

Large crabgrass

Smooth crabgrass

Southern crabgrass

Common purslane

Spotted spurge

Chamber bitter

Annual sedge

Rebekah D. Wallace, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org

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Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org

URBAN AG Simple perennial weeds • •

Primarily reproduce and spread by seed Will re-grow from a fleshy taproot (broadleaves) or crown (grasses)

Complex perennial weeds •

Primarily reproduce and spread by asexual reproduction (rhizomes and stolons)

Wild garlic

White clover

Buckhorn plantain

Canada thistle

Dandelion

Ground ivy

Curly dock

Bermudagrass

Rebekah D. Wallace, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org

Bruce Ackley, The Ohio State University, Bugwood.org

Chris Evans, University of Illinois, Bugwood.org

L.L. Berry, Bugwood.org

Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Chris Evans, University of Illinois, Bugwood.org

Perennial weeds

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Control

Cultural control •

•

•

Routinely scout turf • Identify weeds that warrant control • Note new species that are present Early detection is critical • Prevent spread before problematic Example: purple nutsedge in bermudagrass • Evaluate turfgrass cultural practices Soil factors: poor drainage, improper pH, or excessive compaction limit turf growth • Wet soil: sedges - purple nutsedge, green kyllinga, rushes, annual bluegrass, mosses • Compacted soil: annual bluegrass, goosegrass, prostrate knotweed, common lespedeza, path rush

Preemergence herbicide timing recommendations in fall September 1 to 15

September 15 to October 1

October 1 to 15

Annual weeds •

Life cycle is predictable

•

Apply preemergence herbicides before establishment

Simple perennial weeds • •

Partial control with hand-pulling and digging Preemergence herbicides may help stop the spread from seed but may not be reliable.

Postmergence herbicide timing recommendations in spring March 1 to April 1

Complex perennial weeds

UAC MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

•

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• •

March 1 to 20

Hand pulling and digging is not a long-term control solution Weeds tend to grow in patches If spot treating/renovating area, treat a larger area surrounding the patch

January 1 to March 1

And remember...

About the author Patrick McCullough is Associate Professor of Crop & Soil Sciences at UGA's Griffin campus.

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